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The 
Crow's 

Nest 











This Simian, World 
By Clarence Day, Jr. 

«f\NE of the best pieces of satire 
^ from the pen of an American. 
As a recruiting pamphlet for the hu- 
man race. 'This Simian World' can- 
not be surpassed."- 

— New York Tribune. 

«nPHE most amusing little essay of 
•*■ the year. We like best his pic- 
ture of the cat civilization. It is even 
finer than Swift's immortal description 
of a country governed by the super- 

-The Independent. 

$1.50 net at all bookshops 
New York : Alfred A. Knopf 











The Crow's Nest 



jstfk 



h Clarence Day, Jr. 

With Illustrations by the Author 



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New 



York Alfred • A • Knopf Mcmxxi 



COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY 
CLARENCE DAY, Jr. 



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PRINTED XN TUB UNTTBP STATES 0» AMBBIOA 



DEC 22 I92I 



v aC!.A653196 



/ \ . « \ 



With Acknowledgments to the Editors of 
the Metropolitan Magazine, Harpers Mag- 
azine, Harpers Weekly, The New Republic, 
and The Boston Transcript. 



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Contents 



PAGE 



The Three Tigers 3 

As They Go Riding By 7 

A Man Gets Up in the Morning 15 

Odd Countries 18 

On Cows 26 

Stroom and Graith 28 

Legs vs. Architects 44 

To Phoebe 49 

Sex, Religion and Business 51 

An Ode to Trade 63 

Objections to Reading 65 

ON AUTHORS 

The Enjoyment of Gloom 77 

Buffoon Fate 84 

The Wrong Lampman 89 

The Seamy Side of Fabre 93 

In His Baby Blue Ship 10 1 



Contents 




PROBLEMS 


PAGE 


The Man Who Knew Gods 


109 


Improving the Lives of the Rich 


118 


From Noah to> Now 


128 


Sic Semper Dissenters 


135 


Humpty Dumpty and Adam 


137 


How It Looks to a Fish 


142 


A Hopeful Old Bigamist 


147 


The Revolt of Capital 


154 


Still Reading Away 


161 


PORTRAITS 




A Wild Polish Hero 


165 


Mrs. P.'s Side of It 


173 


The Death of Logan 


183 


Portrait of a Lady 


190 


Grandfather's Three Lives 


198 


Story of a Farmer 


217 



The 

Crow's 

Nest 



The Three Tigers 



As to Tiger Number One, what he likes best is 
prowling and hunting. He snuffs at all the inter- 
esting and exciting smells there are on the breeze; 
that dark breeze that tells him the secrets the 
jungle has hid: every nerve in his body is alert, 
every hair in his whiskers; his eyes gleam; he's 
ready for anything. He and Life are at grips. 

Number Two is a 
higher-browed tiger, in 
a nice cozy cave. He 
has spectacles; he sits in 
a rocking-chair reading a 
book. And the book de- 
scribes all the exciting 
smells there are on the 
breeze, and tells him what happens in the jungle, 
where nerves are alert; where adventure, death, 
hunting and passion are found every night. He 
spends his life reading about them, in a nice 
cozy cave. 

It's a curious practice. You'd think if he 
were interested in jungle life he'd go out and 
live it. There it is, waiting for him, and that's 
what he really is here for. But he makes a 

[3] 




The Crow's Nest 

cave and shuts himself off from it — and then 

reads about it! 

* * * 

Once upon a time some victims of the book- 
habit got into heaven; and what do you think, 
they behaved there exactly as here. That was 
to be expected, however: habits get so in- 
grained. They never took the trouble to explore 
their new celestial surroundings; they sat in the 
harp store-room all eternity, and read about 
heaven. 

They said they could really learn more about 
heaven, that way. 

And in fact, so they could. They could get 
more information, and faster. But informa- 
tion's pretty thin stuff, unless mixed with expe- 
rience. 

* * * 

But that's not the worst. It is Tiger Num- 
ber Three who's the worst. He not only reads 
all the time, but he wants what he reads sweet- 
ened up. He objects to any sad or uncom- 
fortable account of outdoors; he says it's sad 
enough in his cave; he wants something uplift- 
ing. So authors obediently prepare uplifting ac- 
counts of the jungle, or they try to make the jun- 
gle look pretty, or funny, or something; and 
Number Three reads every such tale with great 
satisfaction. And since he's indoors all the time 

[4] 



The Three Tigers 







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B^oK-^OVGAS 



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He.civevs 



and never sees the real jungle, he soon gets to 
think that these nice books he reads may be true ; 
and if new books describe the jungle the way it is, 
he says they're unhealthy. "There are aspects of 
life in the jungle," he says, getting hot, "that no 

[5] 



The Crow's Nest 

decent tiger should ever be aware of, or notice. " 

Tiger Number Two speaks with contempt of 

these feelings of Three's. Tigers should have 

more courage. They should bravely read about 

the real jungle. 

* * * 

The realist and the romantic tiger are agreed 
upon one point, however. They both look down 
on tigers that don't read but merely go out and 
live. 



[6] 



As They Go Riding By 

What kind of men do we think the mediae- 
val knights really were? I have always seen 
them in a romantic light, finer than human. 
Tennyson gave me that apple, and I confess 
I did eat, and I have lived on the wrong 
diet ever since. Malory was almost as mislead- 
ing. My net impression was that there were a 
few wicked, villainous knights, who committed 
crimes such as not trusting other knights or say- 
ing mean things, but that even they were subject 
to shame when found out and rebuked, and that 
all the rest were a fine, earnest Y. M. C. A. 
crowd, with the noblest ideals. 

But only the poets hold this view of knights, 
not the scholars. Here, for example, is a cold- 
hearted scholar, Monsieur Albert Guerard. He 
has been digging into the old mediaeval records 
with an unromantic eye, hang him; and he has 
emerged with his hands full of facts which prove 
the knights were quite different. They did have 
some good qualities. When invaders came around 
the knights fought them off as nobly as possible; 
and they often went away and fought Saracens or 
ogres or such, and when thus engaged they gave 
little trouble to the good folk at home. But in 

[7] 



The Crow's Nest 

between wars, not being educated, they couldn't 
sit still and be quiet. It was dull in the house. 
They liked action. So they rode around the 
streets in a pugnacious, wild-western manner, 
despising anyone who could read and often 
knocking him down ; and making free with the per- 
sonal property of merchants and peasants, who 
they thought had no special right to property 
or even to life. Knights who felt rough behaved 
as such, and the injuries they inflicted were often 
fatal. 

They must have been terrors. Think of being 
a merchant or cleric without any armor, and 
meeting a gang of ironclads, with the nearest po- 
lice court centuries off ! Why, they might do any- 
thing, and whatever they did to a merchant, they 
thought was a joke. Whenever they weren't 
beating you up they fought with one another like 
demons — I don't mean just in tournaments, which 
were for practice, but in small, private wars. 
And to every war, public or private, citizens had 
to contribute: and instead of being thanked for 
it, they were treated with the utmost contempt. 

Suppose a handsome young citizen, seeing this 
and feeling ambitious, tried to join the gang and 
become a knight himself. Would they let him? 
No ! At first, if he were a powerful fighter, he 
did have a small chance, but as time went on and 
the knights got to feeling more noble than ever, 

[8] 



As They Go Riding By 

being not only knights but the sons of knights, 
they wouldn't let in a new man. The mere idea 
made them so indignant they wanted to lynch him. 
"Their loathing for the people seemed almost 
akin in its intensity to color prejudice." 

They were also extravagant and improvident 
and never made money, so the more they spent 







<s && ^ 



** 3 



the more they had to demand from the people. 
When every one had been squeezed dry for miles 
around, and had been thumped to make sure, 
the knights cursed horribly and borrowed from 
the Church, whether the Church would or no, or 
got hold of some money-lender and pulled his 
beard and never paid interest. 

The Church tried to make them religious and 
partly succeeded; there were some Christian 
knights who were soldierly and courtly, of course. 
But, allowing for this (and for my exaggerating 

[9] 



The Crow's Nest 

their bad side, for the moment), they certainly 
were not the kind of men Tennyson led me to 
think. 

I do not blame Tennyson. He had a perfect 
right to romanticize. He may have known what 
toughs the knights were as well as anybody, but 
loved their noble side, too, and dreamed about it 
until he had made it for the moment seem real to 
him, and then hurried up and written his idyls be- 
fore the dream cracked. He may never have in- 
tended me or any of us to swallow it whole. "It's 
not a dashed bible; it's a book of verse," I can 
imagine him saying, "so don't be an idiot; don't 
forget to read your encyclopedia, too." 

But verse is mightier than any encyclopedia. At 
least it prevails. That's because the human race 
is emotional and goes by its feelings. Why 
haven't encyclopedists considered this? They are 
the men I should blame. What is the use of em- 
bodying the truth about everything in a precise 
condensed style which, even if we read it, we 
can't remember, since it does not stir our feelings? 
The encyclopedists should write their books over 
again, in passionate verse. What we need in an 
encyclopedia is lyrical fervor, not mere complete- 
ness — Idyls of Economic Jurisprudence, Songs of 
the Nitrates. Our present compendiums are 
meant for scholars rather than people. 

Well, the knights are gone and only their ar- 
[io] 



As They Go Riding By 

mor and weapons remain; and our rich merchants 
who no longer are under-dogs, collect these as 
curios. They present them with a magnificent 
gesture to local museums. The metal suit which 
old Sir Percy Mortimer wore, when riding down 
merchants, is now in the Briggsville Academy, 







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^ 







which never heard of Sir Percy, and his armor is 
a memorial to Samuel Briggs of the Briggs Tail- 
oring Company. In Europe a few ancient fam- 
ilies, in financial decay, are guarding their ances- 
tors' clothing as well as they can, but sooner or 
later they will be driven to sell it, to live. And 
they won't live much longer at that. The race 
will soon be extinct. 

Last year I got a bulletin of the Metropolitan 



The Crow's Nest 

Museum of Art about armor. It described how 
an American collector saw a fine set in Paris. 
"A single view was quite enough to enable him to 
decide that the armor was too important to re- 
main in private hands." And that settled it. 
These collectors are determined fellows and must 
have their own way — like the knights. 

But there were difficulties this time. They 
couldn't at first get this set. The knightly owner 
of the armor, "in whose family it was an heir- 
loom, was, from our point of view, singularly un- 
reasonable: he . . . was unwilling to part with 
it; the psychological crisis when he would allow 
it to pass out of his hands must, therefore, be 
awaited." For there comes "a propitious mo- 
ment in cases of this kind," adds the bulletin. 

Yes, "in cases of this kind" collectors comfort- 
ably wait for that crisis when the silent old 
knightly owner finally has to give in. They leave 
agents to watch him while he struggles between 
want and pride, agents who will snap him up if a 
day comes when the old man is weak. These 
agents must be persistent and shrewd, and must 
present tactful arguments, and must shoo away 
other agents, if possible, so as to keep down the 
price. When the "propitious" time comes they 
must act quickly, lest the knight's weakness pass, 
or lest some other knight send him help and thus 
make them wait longer. And, having got the 

[12] 



As They Go Riding By 

armor, they hurry it off, give a dinner, and other 
merchants come to view it and measure it and 
count up the pieces. 

This sort of thing has been happening over and 
over in Europe — the closing scenes of the order of 
knighthood, not foreseen at gay tournaments! 
They were lucky in those days not to be able to 
look into the future. Are we lucky to be blind, 
at Mount Vernon or on some old campus? The 
new times to come may be better — that always is 
possible — but they won't be the kind we are build- 
ing, and they may scrap our shrines. 

Some day when our modern types of capitalists 
are extinct, in their turn, will future poets sing of 
their fine deeds and make young readers dream? 
Our capitalists are not popular in these days, but 
the knights weren't in theirs, and whenever abuse 
grows extreme a reaction will follow. Our crit- 
ics and reformers think they will be the heroes of 
song, but do we sing of critics who lived in the 
ages of chivalry? There must have been reform- 
ers then who pleaded the cause of down-trodden 
citizens, and denounced and exposed cruel knights, 
but we don't know their names. It is the knights 
we remember and idealize, even old Front-de- 
Boeuf. They were doers — and the men of the fu- 
ture will idealize ours. Our predatory interests 
will seem to them gallant and strong. When a 
new Tennyson appears, he will never look up the 

[13] 



The Crow's Nest 

things in our newspapers; he won't even read the 
encyclopedia — Tennysons don't. He will get his 
conception of capitalists out of his heart. 
Mighty men who built towers to work in, and 
fought with one another, and engaged in great 
capitalist wars, and stood high above labor. 
King Carnegie and his round directors' table of 
barons of steel. Armour, Hill and Stillman, Jay 
Gould — musical names, fit for poems. 

The men of the future will read, and disparage 
their era, and wish they had lived in the wild 
clashing times we have now. They will try to 
enliven the commonplaceness of their tame daily 
lives by getting up memorial pageants where they 
can dress up as capitalists — some with high hats 
and umbrellas (borrowed from the museums), 
some as golfers, or polo players, carrying the 
queer ancient implements. Beautiful girls will 
happily unbuckle their communist suits and dress 
up in old silken low-necks, hired from a costumer. 
Little boys will look on with awe as the procession 
goes by, and then hurry off to the back yard and 
play they are great financiers. And if some es- 
say, like this, says the capitalists were not all 
noble, but a mixed human lot like the knights, 
many with selfish, harsh ways, the reader will turn 
from it restlessly. We need these illusions. 

Ah, well, if we must romanticize something, it 
had best be the past. 

[14] 



A Man Gets Up in the Morning 

A man gets up in the morning and looks out at 
the weather, and dresses, and goes to his work, 
and says hello to his friends, and plays a little pool 
in the evening and gets into bed. But only a part 
of him has been active in doing all that. He has a 
something else in him — a wondering instinct — 
a "soul." Assuming he isn't religious, what does 
he do with that part of him? 

He usually keeps that part of him asleep if he 
can. He doesn't like to let it wake up and look 
around at the world, because it asks awful ques- 
tions — about death, or truth — and that makes 
him uncomfortable. He wants to be cheery and 
he hates to have his soul interfere. The soul is 
too serious and the best thing to do is to deaden it. 

Humor is an opiate for the soul, says Francis 
Hackett. Laugh it off: that's one way of not 
facing a trouble. Sentimentality, too, drugs the 
soul; so does business. That's why humor and 
sentimentality and business are popular. 

In Russia, it's different. Their souls are 
more awake, and less covered. The Russians 
are not businesslike, and they're not sentimental, 
or humorous. They are spiritually naked by 
contrast. An odd, moody people. We look 

[15] 



The Crow's Nest 

on, well wrapped-up, and wonder why they shiver 
at life. 

"My first interest," the Russian explains, 
"is to know where I stand : I must look at the past, 
and the seas of space about me, and the intricate 
human drama on this little planet. Before I can 
attend to affairs, or be funny, or tender, I must 
know whether the world's any good. Life may 
all be a fraud." 

The Englishman and American answer that 
this is not practical. They don't believe in any- 
one's sitting down to stare at the Sphinx. "That 
won't get you anywhere," they tell him. "You 
must be up and doing. Find something that in- 
terests you, then do it, and — " 

"Well, and what?" says the Russian. 

"Why — er — and you'll find out as much 
of the Riddle in that way as any." 

"And how much is that?" 



\ 



J? 



3 




A Man Gets Up in the Morning 

"Why, not so very damn much perhaps," we an- 
swer. "But at least you'll keep sane." 

"Why keep sane?" says the Russian. "If 






(J^>l\.l ( "tt.*" «Ay sGuy sa^e 7 J 



C-> <L6 



there is any point to so doing I should naturally 
wish to. But if one can't find a meaning to any- 
thing, what is the difference?" 

And the American and Englishman continue to 
recommend business. 






[17] 



Odd Countries 

When I go away for a vacation, which I 
don't any more, I am or was appalled at the ridic- 
ulous inconveniences of it. I have sometimes 
gone to the Great Mother, Nature ; sometimes to 
hotels. Well, the Great Mother is kind, it is said, 
to the birds and the beasts, the small furry crea- 
tures, and even, of old, to the Indian. But I am 
no Indian; I am not even a small furry creature. 
I dislike the Great Mother. She's damp: and 
far too full of insects. 

And as for hotels, the man in the next room 
always snores. And by the time you get used 

> to this, and get in 

/^f^ with some gang, 
-. /^2i\ 7^ your vacatiob is 

V^y (j/-* \ K ^S over anc * y° u have 

p. ^>\ i r to turn around and 

Alj>r\ " g0 home - 

(-4 » |J \\ I I can get more 

^ -J/+*> *cl^j ^ or m y mone y by 

tk, ^ M Uo lai % pu^^u. far from a book - 

For example, the 
Oppenheim novels: there are fifty-three of them, 
and to read them is almost like going on fifty- 
three tours. A man and his whole family could 

[18] 



Odd Countries 

take six for the price of one pair of boots. In- 
stead of trying to find some miserable mosquito- 
ey hotel at the sea-shore, or an old farmer's 
farmhouse where the old farmer will hate you on 
sight, and instead of ^^^ 
packing a trunk and / /*\ x 

running errands and \ \^^ QO^ ; 

catching a train I go ^V£§^ / V/\ 

to a book-shop and f^^^ (/ ' }\\ 




buy any Oppenheim AJlJ ^ C ^ >^<j 
novel. When I gv\ ~~~f^ f /* ^ 






on a tour with him, 
I start off so quickly 
and easily. I sit in my armchair, I turn to the 
first page, and it's like having a taxi at the door 
— "Here's your car, sir, all ready!" The minute 
I read that first page I am off like a shot, into a 
world where things never stop happening. Mag- 
nificent things ! It's about as swift a change as 
you could ask from jog-trot daily life. 

On page two, I suddenly discover that beau- 
tiful women surround me. Are they adventur- 
esses? I cannot tell. I must beware every 
minute. Everybody is wary and suave, and they 
are all princes and diplomats. The atmosphere is 
heavy with the clashing of powerful wills. Paid 
murderers and spies are about. Hah ! am I being 
watched? The excitement soon gets to a point 
where it goes to my head. I find myself mutter- 

[19] 



The Crow's Nest 

ing thickly or biting my lips — two things I never 
do ordinarily and should not think of doing. I 
may even give a hoarse cry of rage as I sit in my 
armchair. But I'm not in my armchair. I am on 







Ok 







tux 



a terrace, alone, in the moonlight. A beautiful 
woman (a reliable one) comes swiftly toward me. 
Either she is enormously rich or else I am, but we 
don't think of that. We embrace each other. 
Hark! There is the duke, busily muttering 
thickly. How am I to reply to him? I decide to 
give him a hoarse cry of rage. He bites his lips 
at me. Some one else shoots us both. All is 

over. 

* * * 

If any one is too restless to take his vacation 
in books, the quaintest and queerest of countries is 
just around the corner. An immigrant is only 



Odd Countries 

allowed to stay from 8.15 to 11 P. M., but an 
hour in this country does more for you than a 
week in the mountains. No canned fish and veg- 
etables, no babies — 

I wonder, by the way, why most babies find 
existence so miserable? Convicts working on 
roadways, stout ladies in tight shoes and corsets, 
teachers of the French language — none of these 
suffering souls wail in public; they don't go around 
with puckered-up faces, distorted and screaming, 
and beating the air with clenched fists. Then why 
babies? You may say it's the nurse; but look at 
the patients in hospitals. They put up not only 











with illness, but nurses besides. No, babies are 
unreasonable; they expect far too much of exist- 
ence. Each new generation that comes takes one 
look at the world, thinks wildly, "Is this all they've 

[«] 



The Crow's Nest 

done to it?" and bursts into tears. "You might 
have got the place ready for us," they would say, 
only they can't speak the language. "What have 
you been doing all these thousands of years on this 
planet? It's messy, it's badly policed, badly laid 
out and built — " 

Yes, Baby. It's dreadful. I don't know 
why we haven't done better. I said just now that 
you were unreasonable, but I take it all back. 
Statesmen complain if their servants fail to keep 
rooms and kitchens in order, but are statesmen 
themselves any good at getting the world tidied 
up? No, we none of us are. We all find it a 
wearisome business. 

Let us go to that country I spoke of, the one 
round the corner. We stroll through its entrance, 
and we're in Theatrical-Land. 

A remarkable country. May God bless the 
man who invented it. I always am struck by its 
ways, it's so odd and delightful — 

"But," some one objects (it is possible), "it 
isn't real." 

Ah, my dear sir, what world, then, is real, 
as a matter of fact? You won't deny that it's not 
only children who live in a world of their own, 
but debutantes, college boys, business men — 
certainly business men, so absorbed in their game 
that they lose sight of other realities. In fact, 
there is no one who doesn't lose sight of some, is 

[22] 



Odd Countries 

there? Well, that's all that the average play 
does. It drops just a few out. To be sure, 
when it does that, it shows us an incomplete world, 
and hence not the real one; but that is character- 
istic of humans. We spend our lives moving 
from one incomplete world to another, from our 
homes to our clubs or our offices, laughing or grum- 
bling, talking rapidly, reading the paper, and not 
doing much thinking outside of our grooves. 
Daily life is more comfortable, somehow, if you 
narrow your vision. When you try to take in all 
the realities, all the far-away high ones, you must 
first become quite still and lonely. And then in 
your loneliness a fire begins to creep through your 
veins. It's — well — I don't know much about it. 
Shall we return to the theater? 

The oddest of all entertainments is a musical 
comedy. I remember that during the war we had 
one about Belgium. When the curtain went up, 
soldiers were talking by the light of a lantern, and 
clapping each other on the shoulder when their 
feelings grew deep. They exchanged many well- 
worded thoughts on their deep feelings, too, and 
they spoke these thoughts briskly and readily, for 
it was the eve of a battle. One of the soldiers 
blinked his eye now and then. He was taking it 
hard. He said briskly he probably would never 
see his mother again. 

His comrade, being affected by this, clapped 

[23] 






The Crow's Nest 

his friend on the shoulder, and said, Oh yes he 
would, and cheer up. 

The other looked at him, stepped forward 
(with his chest well expanded) , and said ringingly : 
"I was not thinking of myself, Jean. I was think- 
ing of Bel-jum." 

It was a trifle confusing, but we applauded 
him roundly for this. The light from the balcony 
shown full on the young hero's face. You could 
see he was ready for the enemy — his dark-rouged 
cheeks, his penciled eyebrows proved it. He of- 
fered to sing us a song, on the subject of home. 
His comrade hurried forward and clapped him 
some more on the shoulder. 
The orchestra started. 

"Muth-aw, 
"Muth-aw," 
roared the hero, standing 
stiffly at attention, 

"Let your arms en-fo- 
o-ho-old me" 

All was silent on the fir- 
ing-line — except of course, 
for this singing. The 
enemy waited politely. 
The orchestra played on. Then the song ended, 
and promptly the banging of guns was heard in 
the distance — and a rather mild bang hit the shed 
and the lantern went out. 

[24] 





Odd Countries 

The audience was left there to shudder alone, 
in the darkness, not knowing whether the hero 
was dead — though, of course, we had hopes. 
. . . Then up went the curtain, and there he stood 
by a chateau, where a plump Belgian maid, dressed 
in white silk, was pouring high tea. 

An American war- 
correspondent appeared 
on the scene. He was 
the humorous character 
of the performance. 
He was always in 
trouble over his pass- 
ports. He had with 
him a Red Cross nurse 

who capered about, singing songs, as did also eight 
Belgian girls, from the neighboring farms. Bel- 
gian girls are all young and tuneful, the audience 
learned, and they spend their time during wars 
dancing with war-correspondents. They wear 
fresh, pretty clothes. So do soldiers who come 
home on leave. Sky-blue uniforms, gilt, shiny 
boots. All was smiling in Bel-jum. 

Then the clock struck eleven. The curtain 
went down, like a wall. We were turned out, like 
poor Cinderella, into the cold, noisy streets. 
Dense pushing crowds. Newsboys shouting, 
"Great Slaughter in Flanders." The wails of 
some baby attempting to get used to existence. 

[25] 



On Cows 



I was thinking the other evening of cows. 
You say Why? I can't tell you. But it came to 
me, all of a sudden, that cows lead hard lives. It 
takes such a lot of grass, apparently, to keep a cow 
going that she has to spend all her time eating, day 
in and day out. Dogs bounce around and bark, 
horses caper, birds fly, also sing, while the cow 
looks on, enviously, maybe, unable to join them. 
Cows may long for conversation or prancing, for 

all that we know, but 
they can't spare the time. 
The problem of nourish- 
ment takes every hour: 
a pause might be fatal. 
So they go through life 
drearily eating, resentful 
and dumb. Their food 
is most uninteresting, 
and is frequently covered 
with bugs; and their 
thoughts, if they dwell 
on their hopeless careers, 
must be bitter. 
In the old days, when huge and strange ani- 
mals roamed through the world, there was an era 

[26] 




On Cows 

when great size was necessary, as a protection. 
All creatures that could do so grew large. It was 
only thus they felt safe. But as soon as they be- 
came large, the grass-eating creatures began to 
have trouble, because of the fact that grass has a 
low nutritive value. You take a dinosaur, for in- 
stance, who was sixty or seventy feet long. Imag- 
ine what a hard task it must have been for him, 
every day, to get enough grass down his throat to 
supply his vast body. Do you wonder that, as 
scientists tell us, they died of exhaustion? Some 
starved to death even while feverishly chewing 
their cud — the remoter parts of their bodies faint- 
ing from famine while their fore-parts got fed. 
This exasperating fate is what darkens the mind 
of the cow. 



[27] 






Stroom and Graith 




TjO&e~% G^oJd'k ox^ u<yuA*<± 



When Graith was young, and Stroom returned 

From conquering the Northern Stars ; 
And showed to her the road he'd burned 

Across the sky, to make his wars ; 
And smiled at Fear, and hid his scars — 

He little dreamed his fate could hold 
The doom of dwarfish avatars 

That Vega sent, when Stroom was old. 

When you are talking things over with any 
one, you have to take some precautions. If you 
have just come from a cathedral, and try to dis- 
cuss its stained glass, with the janitor of your 

[28] 



Stroom and Graith 

apartment house, say, — why, it won't be much use, 
because stained glass means to him bathroom 
windows, and that's all his mind will run on. I 
am in exactly that position at this moment. I 
don't mean bathroom windows, I mean what is the 
use of my saying a word about Stroom and Graith, 
to any one who may think they are a firm of pro- 
vision dealers in Yonkers. Any woman who be- 
gan this essay thinking that Graith was a new per- 
fume, — any man who said to himself "Stroom? 
Oh, yes: that Bulgarian ferment," — are readers 
who would really do better to go and read some- 
thing else. 

Having settled that, I must now admit that 
until yesterday I knew nothing about them myself. 
Yet, centuries ago, Stroom and Graith were on 
every one's tongues. Then, I don't know what 
happened, but a strange silence about them began. 
One by one, those who had spoken of them freely 
in some way were hushed. The chronicles of the 
times became silent, and named them no more. 

We think when we open our histories, we 
open the past. We open only such a small part 
of it! Great tracts disappear. Forgetfulness 
or secret taboos draw the dim curtains down, and 
hide from our sight awful thoughts, monstrous 
deeds, monstrous dooms. . . . 

Even now, in the bright lights and courage 
of the era we live in, there has been only one 

[29] 



The Crow's Nest 

writer who has ventured to name Stroom and 
Graith. 

His name was Dixon; he was at Oxford, in 
the fifties, with that undergraduate group which 
included Burne-Jones, William Morris, and on 
the outside, Rossetti. Where he found what so 
long had been hidden, even he does not say. 
But he wrote certain poems, in which Stroom 
and Graith, and the Agraffe appear. 

This fact is recorded in only one book that 
I know of, and that is in the fifth volume of Mr. 
T. Humphry Ward's English Poets. When I 
opened this book, I read for the first time 
about Dixon. I also read one of his poems, 
which was wildish and weird: 

"Go now from the shore, 
Far ruined : the grey shingly floor 
To thy crashing step answers, the doteril cries, 
And on dipping wing flies: 
'Tis their silence !" 

Not knowing what a doteril was, I looked 
to see if the editor had explained: but no, all he 
said was that Dixon was fond of such words. 

He added that others such as Stroom, Graith, 
and Agraffe appeared in his poems. 

But he didn't print those poems in this col- 
lection, or explain those strange names. 

The sound of them fascinated me. I sat there 
and dreamed for a while; and it was out of 

[30] 



Stroom and Graith 

these dreamings that I wrote that verse at the 
head of this essay. Some stern and vast mys- 
tery seemed to me about to enfold. What part 




Ike. ciofoi.^ c/uc3 



the Agraffe played in it (a mediaeval beast I imag- 
ined) I could not know, could not guess. But 
I pictured a strong-hearted Stroom to myself as 
some hero, waging far, lonely fights, against 
foes on the edge of the skies; and I dreamed of 
how Vega stood waiting, until Stroom married 
Graith, and of how at the height of his majesty 
she inflicted her doom — a succession of abhorrent 
rebirths as a grotesque little dwarf. 

Still, these were only my imaginings, and I 

[31] ' 



The Crow's Nest 

wanted the records. I sent to the public library, 
and got out all of Dixon they had. Great red 
and gold volumes. But the one that I wanted — 
not there. ... I sent to several famous universi- 
ties. ... It was not to be found. 

I turned my search over to an obliging old 
friend, a librarian, and sat down feeling thwarted, 
to console myself with some other poet. There 
were many in Volume V of the English Poets, but 
not a one of them calmed me. I read restlessly 
every day, waiting to hear about Stroom. Then 
at last, one rainy evening, a telegram came! It 
was from that old friend. "Have found all those 
words Dixon used, in a dialect dictionary. It 
gives: 'Stroom: rightly strom: a malt strainer, 
a wicker-work basket or bottle, placed under the 
bunghole of a mash-tub to strain off the hops/ 
Mr. Dixon used it because he loved its sound, I 
suppose. As to Graith, it means 'furniture, equip- 
ment, apparatus for traveling.' And agraffes 
are the ornamented hooks used to fasten Knights' 
armor. They are mentioned in Ivanhoe." 

Well, poets are always disappointing me. 

I don't know why I read them. 
* * * 

However, having bought Volume V to read, I 
tried to keep on with it. 

I read what it said about Browning's father 
being a banker. Poor old man, I felt sorry for 

[32] 



Stroom and Graith 




him. Imagine the long years when he and his son 
faced each other, the old father telling himself 
hopefully, u Ah, well, he's a child, he'll get over 
these queer poetical ways," — and then his not 
getting over them, but proposing to give his life 
to poetry! Make a career of it! 

If there are any kind of men who want sons 
like themselves, it's our bankers: they have their 
banks to hand on, and they long to have nice 
banker babies. But it seems they are constantly 
begetting impossible infants. Cardinal Newman 
for instance: his bewildered father too was a 

[33] 



The Crow's Nest 

banker. Fate takes a special pleasure in tripping 
these worthy men up. 

Imagine Browning senior reading "Pippa 
Passes," with pursed lips, at his desk. What 
mental pictures of his son's heroine did the old 
gentleman form, as he followed her on her now 
famous walk through that disreputable neigh- 
borhood? 

I hope he enjoyed more "How They Brought 
the Good News from Ghent. " For example, 
where the man says, while galloping fast down 
the road: 

"I turned in my saddle and made the girths tight, 
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, 
Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit — " 

The banker must have been pleased that Robert 
could harness a horse in rhyme anyhow. I dare 
say he knew as we all do that it was poor enough 




Ha. Ha&Aq. 'tJLa. &S\/i.ihs t<.ykt~ 



Stroom and Graith 

poetry, but at least it was practical. It was some- 
thing he could tell his friends at the club. 
* * * 

Putting Browning aside with poor Stroom, I 
next tried Matthew Arnold. 

The Arnolds : a great family, afflicted with an 
unfortunate strain. Unusually good qualities, — 
but they feel conscientious about them. 

If Matthew Arnold had only been born into 
some other family! If he had only been the son 
of C. S. Calverley or Charles II, for instance. 

He had a fine mind, and he and it matured 
early. Both were Arnold characteristics. But 
so was his conscientiously setting himself to enrich 
his fine mind "by the persistent study of 'the best 
that is known and thought in the world.' " This 
was deadening. Gentlemen who teach themselves 
just how and what to appreciate, take half the 
vitality out of their appreciation thereafter. 
They goi out and collect all "the best" and bring 
it carefully home, and faithfully pour it down 
their throats — and get drunk on it? No! It 
loses its lift and intoxication, taken like that. 

An aspiring concern with good art is supposed 
to be meritorious. People "ought" to go to 
museums and concerts, and they "ought" to read 
poetry. It is a mark of superiority to have a 
full supply of the most correct judgments. 

This doctrine is supposed to be beyond dis- 

[35] 



The Crow's Nest 

cussion, Leo Stein says. "I do not think it is be- 
yond discussion," he adds. "It is more nearly 
beneath it. . . . To teach or formally to encour- 
age the appreciation of art does more harm than 
good. ... It tries to make people see things 
that they do not feel. . . . People are stuffed 
with appreciation in our art galleries, instead of 
looking at pictures for the fun of it." 

Those who take in art for the fun of it, and 
don't fake their sensations, acquire an appetite 
that it is a great treat to satisfy. And by and by, 
art becomes as necessary to them as breathing 
fresh air. 

To the rest of us, art is only a luxury: a 
dessert, not a food. 

* * * 

Some poets have to struggle with a harsh 
world for leave to be poets, like unlucky peaches 
trying to ripen north of Latitude 50. Coventry 
Patmore by contrast was bred in a hot-house. 
He was the son of a man named Peter G. Pat- 
more, who, unlike most fathers, was willing to 
have a poet in the family. In fact he was eager. 
He was also, unfortunately, helpful, and did all 
he could to develop in his son "an ardor for 
poetry." But ardor is born, not cooked. A 
watched pot never boils. Nor did Patmore. He 
had many of the other good qualities that all 
poets need, but the quality Peter G. planned to 

[36] 



Stroom and Graith 

develop in the boy never grew. Young Patmore 
studied the best Parnassian systems, he obeyed 
the best rules, he practiced the right spiritual 
calisthenics, took his dumb-bells out daily: but he 
merely proved that poetry is not the automatic 
result of going through even the properest mo- 
tions correctly. 

Still he kept on, year by year, and the results 
were impressive. Many respected them highly. 
Including their author. 

He grew old in this remarkable harness. Per- 
haps he also grew tired. At any rate, at sixty- 
three he "solemnly recorded" the fact that he 
had finally finished u his task as a poet." He lived 
for about ten years more, but the remainder was 
silence. "He had been a practicing poet for forty- 
seven years," Edmund Gosse says. Odd way for 
Gosse to talk: as though he were describing a 
dentist. 

One of this worthy Mr. Patmore's most worthy 
ideas was that the actual writing of verse was but 
a part of his job. Not even professional poets, 
he felt, should make it their chief occupation. 
No; one ought to spend months, maybe years, 
meditating on everything, in order to supply his 
soul with plenty of suitable thoughts — like a 
tailor importing fine woolens to accumulate stock. 
And even with the shelves full, one ought not to 
work till just the right hour. 

[37] 



The Crow's Nest 

His theories called for a conscientious in- 
spection of each inspiration. They also obliged 
this good gentleman to exercise self-control. 
Many a time when he wanted to work he held 
back. Although "the intention to write was 
never out of his mind" (Mr. Gosse says), Mr. 
Patmore had "the power of will to refuse himself 
the satisfaction of writing, except on those rare 
occasions when he felt capable of doing his best." 

There once was a man I knew, who wooed his 
fiancee on those terms. He used to sit think- 
ing away in his library, evenings, debating 
whether he had better go see her, and whether he 
was at his best. And after fiddling about in a 
worried way between yes and no, he would some- 
times go around only to find that she would not 
see him. I think that she loved the man, too, or 
was ready to love him. "His honesty has a hor- 
rible fascination for me," I remember her saying, 
"but when he has an impulse to kiss me — and I 
see him stop — and look as though he were taking 
his temperature with a thermometer first, trying 
to see if his blood is up — I want to hit him and 
scream!" 

Mr. Patmore, however, was very firm about 
this being necessary. He had many a severe in- 
ner struggle because of his creed. He would re- 
pulse the most enticing inspiration, if his ther- 
mometer wasn't at just the right figure. Neither 

[38] 




Stroom and Graith 

he nor his inspirations were robust, but they were 
evenly matched, and 
they must have wres- 
tled obstinately and 
often in the course of 
his life, and pushed 
each other about and 
exchanged slaps and 
tense bloodless pinch- 
es. But whenever Mr. 

Patmore felt it his duty K«. -feoK Ku ttm^*"^t 
to wrestle, he won. 

Consequently, looking backward he felt able 
to say when he was old: "I have written little, but 
it is all my best; I have never spoken when I had 
nothing to say, nor spared time nor labor to make 
my words true. I have respected posterity, and 
should there be a posterity which cares for letters, 
I dare to hope that it will respect me." 

That last phrase has a manly ring. Imagine 
him, alone late at night, trying to sum up his life, 
and placing before us what bits he had managed 
to do before dying. We may live through some 
evening of that sort ourselves, by and by. We 
may turn to look back at the new faces of the 
young men and women who will some day be in- 
heriting our world as we go out its gate. Will 
they laugh at us and think us pompous, as some 
of us regard Mr. Patmore? He doesn't seem 

[39] 



The Crow's Nest 

very hopeful, by the way, about our caring for 
letters, but he does seem to think, if we do, that 
we will not make fun of him. 

I don't think he ought to mind that, though, 
if we are friendly about it. We certainly respect 
him compared with many men of his time — the 
shifty politicians, the vicious or weak leaders of 
thought, who went through life as softies, without 
rigid standards of conduct. He shines out by 
contrast, this incorruptible, solemn old Roman. 

Only — he was so solemn! "From child- 
hood to the grave" he thought he had "a mission 
to perform," with his poems. And what was this 
mission that he was so determined to fill? u He 
believed himself to be called upon to celebrate 
Nuptial Love." 

Again it is his solemnity one smiles at, but 
not his idea. Nuptial Love? Very good. The 
possibilities of episodic love have been hotly ex- 
plored, its rights have been defended, its spiritual 
joys have been sung. But Nuptial Love, our queer 
breed of humans, inconstant at heart, believes to 
be a tame thing by contrast: nearly all anti-cli- 
max. There are delights at the beginning, and a 
gentle glow (perhaps) at the end: for the rest it 
is a long dusty journey of which the less said the 
better. Exceptional couples who do somewhat 
better than this, and not only get along without 
storms but live contentedly too, are apt to con- 

[40] 



Stroom and Graith 

gratulate themselves and call their lives a success. 
Contentedly! Pah! Content with mere absence 
of friction! No conception, apparently, of the 
depths beyond depths two should find, who devote 
themselves deeply to each other for all of their 
lives. I don't say this often is possible: I think 
people try : but one or the other comes up against 
a hard place and stops. Only, sometimes it's not 
that which prevents going further; it's a way- 
wardness that will not stick to any one mine to 
get gold. A man slips away and runs about, pick- 
ing up stray outeroppings, but loses the rich veins 
of metal, far down in the earth. 

Why is it that so few of us contentedly stick to 
one mate, and say to ourselves, "Here is my 
treasure ; I will seek all in her." 

Well, this is a subject on which I should en- 
joy speculating — but Nuptial Love happens to be 
a field in which I have had no experience, and fur- 
thermore it is not my theme anyhow, but my 
friend Mr. Patmore's, whose spirit has been 
standing indignantly by, as I wrote, as though it 
were ordering me away, with a No Trespassing 
look. I will therefore withdraw, merely adding 
that he himself didn't do any too well with it. 

However, no poet can avoid an occasional 
slump. For all Mr. Patmore's efforts, he needs 
to be edited as much as the rest of them. Some 
of his little chance sayings were taking and odd : 

[41] 



The Crow's Nest 

"How strange a thing a lover seems 
To animals that do not love." 



But he always fell back into being humdrum 
and jog-trot. Take this stanza, from his poet- 
ical flight entitled Tamerton Church Tower: 

"I mounted, now, my patient nag, 

And scaled the easy steep; 
And soon beheld the quiet flag 

On Lanson's solemn Keep. 
But he was writing jokes for Punch ; 

So I, who knew him well, 
Deciding not to stay for lunch, 

Returned to my hotel." 

May I ask why such verses should be en- 
shrined in a standard collection of poetry? 
The last four lines are good, they have a touch of 
humor or lightness, perhaps; but what can be said 
for the first four? And they, only, are Pat- 
more's. The last four I added myself, in an ef- 
fort to help. 

"A man may mix poetry with prose as much 
as he pleases, and it will only elevate and enliv- 
en," as Landor observed; "but the moment he 
mixes a particle of prose with his poetry, it pre- 
cipitates the whole. " 

* * * 

[42] 



Stroom and Graith 

All but the vulgar like poetry. This is 
using vulgarity in the sense in which Iva Jewel 
Geary defines it, as being "in its essence the ac- 
ceptance of life as low comedy, and the willing- 
ness to be entertained by it always, as such. 
Whereas poetry," she says, "is the interpretation 
of life as serious drama : a play, in the main dig- 
nified and beautiful, or tragic.' , 

Some readers take to poetry as to music, be- 
cause it enraptures the ear. Others of us feel a 
need for its wisdom and insights — and wings. It 
deepens our everyday moods. It reminds us of 
Wonder. Here we are, with our great hearts 
and brains, descended from blind bits of slime, 
erecting a busy civilization on a beautiful earth; 
and that earth is whirling through space, amid 
great golden worlds: and yet, being grandsons 
of slime, we forget to look around us. 

As Patmore expressed it : 

"An idle poet, here and there, 

Looks round him; but, for all the rest, 
The world, unfathomably fair, 

Is duller than a witling's jest. 
Love wakes men, once a lifetime each ; 
They lift their heavy lids, and look ; 
And, lo, what one sweet page can teach, 

They read with joy, then shut the book." 

[43] 



Legs vs. Architects 

I don't know how many persons who hate 
climbing there are in the world; there must be, 
by and large, a great number. I'm one, I know 
that. But whenever a building is erected for 
the use of the public, the convenience of a non- 
climbing person is wholly ignored. 

I refer, of course, to the debonair habit 
which architects have of never designing an en- 
trance that is easy to enter. Instead of leav- 
ing the entrance on the street level so that a 
man can walk in, they perch it on a flight of 
steps, so that no one can get in without climbing. 

The architect's defense is, it looks better. 
Looks better to whom? To architects, and 
possibly to tourists who never go in the building. 
It doesn't look better to the old or the lame, I 
can tell you; nor to people who are tired and 
have enough to do without climbing steps. 

There are eminent scholars in universities, 
whose strength is taxed daily, because they must 
daily climb a parapet to get to their studies. 

Everywhere there are thousands of men and 
women who must work for a living where some 
nonchalant architect has needlessly made their 
work harder. 

[44] 



Legs vs. Architects 

I admit there is a dignity and beauty in a long 
flight of steps. Let them be used, then, around 
statues and monuments, where we don't have to 
mount them. But why put them where they 
add, every day, to the exertions of every one, and 
bar out some of the public completely? That's 
a hard-hearted beauty. 

Suppose that, in the eye of an architect, it 
made buildings more beautiful to erect them on 
poles, as the lake dwellers did, ages back. (It 
would be only a little more obsolete than putting 
them on top of high steps.) Would the public 
meekly submit to this standard and shinny up 
poles all their lives? 

Let us take the situation of a citizen who is 
not a mountaineering enthusiast. He can com- 
mand every modern convenience in most of his 
ways. But if he happens to need a book in the 
Public Library what does he find? He finds 
that some architect has built the thing like a 
Greek temple. It is mounted on a long flight of 
steps, because the Greeks were all athletes. 
He tries the nearest university library. It has a 
flight that's still longer. He says to himself 
(at least I do), "Very well, then, I'll buy the 
damn book." He goes to the book-stores 
They haven't it. It is out of stock, out of print. 
The only available copies are those in the libraries, 
where they are supposed to be ready for every 

[45] 



The Crow's Nest 

one's use; and would be, too, but for the archi- 
tects and their effete barricades. 

This very thing happened to me last winter. 
I needed a book. As I was unable to climb 
into the Public Library, I asked one of my friends 
to go. He was a young man whose legs had not 
yet been worn out and ruined by architects. He 
reported that the book I wanted was on the ref- 
erence shelves, and could not be taken out. If I 
could get in, I could read it all I wanted to, but 
not even the angels could bring it outside to me. 

We went down there and took a look at the 
rampart which would have to be mounted. That 
high wall of steps ! I tried with his assistance to 
climb them, but had to give up. 

He said there was a side entrance. We went 
there, but there, too, we found steps. 

"After you once get inside, there is an eleva- 
tor," the doorkeeper said. 

Isn't that just like an architect! To make 
everything inside as perfect as possible, and then 
keep you out ! 

There's a legend that a lame man once tried 
to get in the back way. There are no steps there, 
hence pedestrians are not admitted. It's a deliv- 
ery entrance for trucks. So this man had himself 
delivered there in a packing case, disguised as the 
Memoirs of Josephine, and let them haul him 
all the way upstairs before he revealed he was 
not. But it seems they turn those cases upside 

[46] 



Legs vs. Architects 

down and every which way in handling them, and 
he had to be taken to the hospital. He said it 
was like going over Niagara. 

If there must be a test imposed on every 
one who enters a library, have a brain test, and 
keep out all readers who are weak in the head. 
No matter how good their legs are, if their brains 
aren't first-rate, keep 'em out. But, instead, we 
impose a leg test, every day of the year, on all 
comers. We let in the brainless without any 
examination at all, and shut out the most schol- 
arly persons unless they have legs like an ante- 
lope's. 

If an explorer told us of some tribe that did 
this, we'd smile at their ways, and think they had 
something to learn before they could call them- 
selves civilized. 

There are especially lofty steps built around 
the Metropolitan Museum, which either repel or 
tire out visitors before they get in. Of those 
who do finally arrive at the doors, up on top, 
many never have enough strength left to view the 
exhibits. They just rest in the vestibule awhile, 
and go home, and collapse. 

It is the same way with most of our churches, 
and half of our clubs. Why, they are even begin- 
ning to build steps in front of our great railway 
stations. Yes, that is what happens when railway 
men trust a "good" architect. He designs some- 
thing that will make it more difficult for people to 

047] 



The Crow's Nest 

travel, and will discourage them and turn them 
back if possible at the start of their journey. And 
all this is done in the name of art. Why can't art 
be more practical? 

There's one possible remedy: 

No architect who had trouble with his own 
legs would be so inconsiderate. His trouble is, un- 
fortunately, at the other end. Very well, break 
his legs. Whenever we citizens engage a new 
architect to put up a building, let it be stip- 
ulated in the contract that the Board of Alder- 
men shall break his legs first. The only objec- 
tion I can think of is that his legs would soon get 
well. In that case, elect some more aldermen 
and break them again. 



[48] 



To Phoebe 



It has recently been discovered that one of the satellites 
of Saturn, known as Phoebe, is revolving in a direction 
the exact contrary of that which all known astronomical 
laws would have led us to expect. English astronomers 
admit that this may necessitate a fundamental revision of 
the nebular hypothesis. — Weekly Paper. 

Phoebe, Phoebe, whirling high 
In our neatly-plotted sky, 
Listen, Phoebe, to my lay: 
Won't you whirl the other way? 

All the other stars are good 
And revolve the way they should. 
You alone, of that bright throng, 
Will persist in going wrong. 

Never mind what God has said — 
We have made a Law instead. 
Have you never heard of this 
Neb-u-lar Hy-poth-e-sis? 

It prescribes, in terms exact, 
Just how every star should act. 
Tells each little satellite 
Where to go and whirl at night. 

[49] 



The Crow's Nest 

Disobedience incurs 
Anger of astronomers, 
Who — you mustn't think it odd- 
Are more finicky than God. 



So, my dear, you'd better change. 
Really, we can't rearrange 
Every chart from Mars to Hebe 
Just to fit a chit like Phoebe. 



[50] 



Sex, Religion and Business 

A young Russian once, in the old nineteenth 
century days, revisited the town he was born in, 
and took a look at the people. They seemed 
stupid — especially the better classes. They had 
narrow-minded ideas of what was proper and 
what wasn't. They thought it wasn't proper to 
love, except in one prescribed way. They worried 
about money, and social position and customs. 
The young Russian was sorry for them; he felt 
they were wasting their lives. His own way of 
regarding the earth was as a storehouse of trea- 
sures — sun, air, great thoughts, great experiences, 
work, friendship and love. And life was our one 
priceless chance to delight in all this, I don't say 
he didn't see much more to life than enjoyment, 
but he did believe in living richly, and not starv- 
ing oneself. 

The people he met, though, were starving them- 
selves all the time. Certain joys that their natures 
desired they would not let themselves have, be- 
cause they had got in the habit of thinking them 
wrong. 

Well, of course this situation is universal; it's 
everywhere. Most men and women have social 
and moral ideas which result in their starving their 

[51] 



The Crow's Nest 

natures. If they should, well and good. But if 
not, it is a serious and ridiculous matter. It's es- 
pecially hard upon those who don't see what they 
are doing. 

I know in my own case that I have been 
starved, more than once. I'm not starved at the 
moment ; but I'm not getting all I want either. So 
far as the great joys of life go, I live on a diet. 
And when something reminds me what splendors 
there may be, round the corner, I take a look out 
of the door and begin to feel restless. I dream I 
see life passing by, and I reach for my hat. 

But a man like myself doesn't usually go at all 
far. His code is too strong — or his habits. 
Something keeps the door locked. Most of us 
are that way; we aren't half as free as we seem. 
When a man has put himself into prison it is 
hard to get out. 

To go back to this Russian, he was in a novel 
of Artzibashef's, called Sanine. I thought at first 
that he might release me from my little jail. But 
it is an odd thing: we victims get particular about 
being freed. We're unwilling to be released by 
just any one: it must be the right man. It's too 
bad to look a savior in the mouth, but it is highly 
important. This man Sanine, for instance, was 
for letting me out the wrong door. 

I didn't see this at the start. In fact I felt 
drawn to him. I liked his being silent and caus- 

[52] 



Sex, Religion and Business 

tic and strong in his views. The only thing was, 
he kept getting a little off-key. There was a mix- 
ture of wrongness in his Tightness that made me 
distrust him. 

Sanine was in his twenties, and in order to get 
all the richness that his nature desired, he had to 
attend to his urgent sexual needs. He wasn't in 
love, but his sexual needs had to be gratified. In 
arranging for this he recognized few or no moral 
restrictions. His idea was that people were apt to 
make an awful mistake when they tried to build 
permanent relations out of these fleeting pleasures. 
Even if there were babies. 

These views didn't commend themselves to 
some of Sanine's neighbors and friends, or to 
that narrow village. They believed in family- 
life, and in marrying, and all that kind of thing, 
and they got no fun at all out of having illegiti- 
mate children. They had a lot of prejudices, 
those people. Sanine gave them a chill. Among 
them was a young man named Yourii ; he's the vil- 
lain of this book. He was not wicked, but stupid, 
poor fellow. He was pure and proud of it. I 
hardly need state that he came to a very bad end. 
And when they urged Sanine, who was standing 
there at Yourii's burial, to make some little 
speech, he replied: "What is there to say? One 
fool less in the world." This made several 
people indignant, and the funeral broke up. 

[S3] 




The Crow's Nest 

A friend of Sanine's named Ivanoff, went 
with him to the country one day, and they passed 
some girls bathing in a stream 
there, without any bathing 
suits, 

"Let's go and look at 
them," suggested Sanine. 
"They would see us." 
"No they wouldn't. We 
could land there, and go 
through the reeds." 

"Leave them alone," said 
Ivanoff, blushing slightly. . . . "They're girls . . . 
young ladies. . . . I don't think it's quite proper." 
"You're a silly fool," laughed Sanine. "Do 
you mean to say that you wouldn't like to see 
them? What man wouldn't do the same if he 
had the chance?" 

"Yes, but if you reason like that, you ought 
to watch them openly. Why hide yourself?" 
"Because it's much more exciting." 
"I dare say, but I advise you not to — " 
"For chastity's sake, I suppose?" 
"If you like." 

"But chastity is the very thing that we don't 
possess." 

Ivanoff smiled, a*nd shrugged his shoulders. 

"Look here, my boy," said Sanine, steering 

toward the bank, "if the sight of girls bathing 

[54] 



Sex, Religion and Business 

were to rouse in you no carnal desire, then you 
would have the right to be called chaste. Indeed 
though I should be the last to imitate it, such chas- 
tity on your part would win my admiration. But, 
having these natural desires, if you attempt to 
suppress them, then I say that your so-called chas- 
tity is all humbug." 

This was one of the incidents that made me 
dislike Mr. Sanine. I liked his being honest, and 
I liked his being down on prudery and humbug. 
But I thought his theory of life was a good deal 
too simple. "Don't repress your instincts," he 
said. That's all very well, but suppose a man has 
more than one kind? If a cheap peeping instinct 
says "Look," and another instinct says "Oh, you 
bounder," which will you suppress? It comes 
down to a question of values. Life holds mo- 
ments for most of us which the having been a 
bounder will spoil. 

The harmonizing of body and spirit and all 
the instincts into one, so we'll have no conflicting 
desires, is an excellent thing — when we do it; 
and we can all do it some of the time, with the will 
and the brains to. But no one can, all the time. 
And when you are not fully harmonized, and hence 
feel a conflict — different parts of your nature 
desiring to go different ways — why, what can 
you do? You must just take your choice of 
repressions. 

[55l 



The Crow's Nest 

As to Sanine, his life is worth reading, and — 
in spots — imitating. But I thought he was rather 
a cabbage. A cabbage is a strong, healthy vege- 
table, honest and vigorous. It's closely in touch 
with nature, and it doesn't pretend to be what it 
isn't. You might do well to study a cabbage : but 
not follow its program. A cabbage has too much 
to learn. How our downright young moderns 
will learn things, I'm sure I don't know. Sanine 
scornfully says "not by repression." Well, I 
don't think highly of repressions; they're not the 
best method. Yet it's possible that they might 

be just the thing — for a cabbage. 

* * * 

Long before Sanine was born — in the year 
1440 in fact — there was a man in India who 
used to write religious little songs. Name of Ka- 
bir. I tried to read his books once, but couldn't, 
not liking extremes. He was pretty ecstatic. I 
could no more keep up with him than with Sanine. 

In his private life Kabir was a married man 
and had several children. By trade he was a 
weaver. Weaving's like knitting: it allows you to 
make a living and think of something else at the 
same time. It was the very thing for Kabir, of 
course. Gave him practically the whole day to 
make songs in, and think of religion. He seems 
to have been a happy fellow — far more so than 
Sanine. 

[56] 




Sex, Religion and Business 

Sanine's comment would have been that Kabir 
was living in an imaginary world, not a real one, 
and that he was 
autointoxicating him- 
self with his dream- 
ings. 

Kabir's answer (ft/ )/ 
would have been that j| /HC$Jr\ 'i :r \ 
Sanine ought to try Q\^ V Ww 
that world before \V\ / J~ CC\ 

judging it, and had vj V/ \y>£> 

better begin by just l/( \ // 

loving people a little. ff^Il O ' > 

More love, and more r -Si ~ — 

willingness to deal ° ******* **■* «+ w ^ ™* 
with his poor fellow-creatures, instead of flinging 
them off in impatience — that would have been Ka- 
bir's prescription. And, as a fact, it might really 
have been an eye-opener for Sanine. 

Of the two, however, I preferred Sanine to 
Kabir. The trouble with Kabir was, he wouldn't 
let you alone. He wanted everybody to be as 
religious as he was: it would make them so 
happy, he thought. This made him rather 
screechy. 

He sang some songs, however, that moved me. 
Like many a modern, I'm not religious; that is, 
I've no creed; but I don't feel quite positive that 
this army of planets just happened, and that man's 

[57] 



The Crow's Nest 

evolution from blindness to thought was an acci- 
dent and that nowhere is any Intelligence vaster 
than mine. 

Therefore, I'm always hoping to win some real 
spiritual insight. It has come to other men with- 
out dogma (I can't accept dogmas) and so, I keep 
thinking, it may some day come to me, too. I 
never really expect it next week, though. It's 
always far off. It might come, for instance, I 
think, in the hour of death. And here is the 
song Kabir sang to all men who think that: 

"O Friend! hope for Him whilst you 
live, know whilst you live, understand 
whilst you live; for in life deliverance 
abides. 

"If your bonds be not broken whilst 
living, what hope of deliverance in death? 

"It is but an empty dream, that the soul 
shall have union with Him because it has 
passed from the body: 

"If He is found now, He is found then. 

"If not, we do but go to dwell in the 
City of Death. 

"If you have union now, you shall have 
it hereafter" 

* * * 

Both Sanine and Kabir should have read 
Tarkington's novel, The Turmoil, which is all 
about the rush and hustle-bustle of life in America. 

[58] 



Sex, Religion and Business 

It would have made them see what great contrasts 
exist in this world. Kabir thought too much about 
religion. Sanine, of sex. Nobody in The Tur- 
moil was especially troubled with either. Some 
went to church, maybe, and sprinkled a little 
religion here and there on their lives; but none 
deeply felt it, or woke up in the morning thinking 
about it, or allowed it to have much say when 
they made their decisions. And as to sex, though 
there were lovers among them, it was only inci- 
dentally that they cared about that. They satis- 
fied nature in a routine way, outside office hours. 
No special excitement about it. Nothing hectic — 
or magical. 

Now, sex is a fundamental state and concern 
of existence : it's a primary matter. If it's pushed 
to one side, we at least should be careful what does 
it. And religion, too, God or no God, is a pri- 
mary matter, if we stretch the word to cover all 
the spiritual gropings of man. Yet what is it that 
pushes these two great things aside in America? 
What makes them subordinate? Business. We 
put business first. 

And what is this business? What is the 
charm of this giant who engrosses us so? In 
Tarkington's novel you find yourself in a town of 
neighborly people, in the middle west some- 
where; a leisurely and kindly place — home-like, 
it used to be called. But in the hearts of these 

[59] 



The Crow's Nest 

people was implanted a longing for size. They 
wished that town to grow. So it did. (We can 
all have our wishes.) And with its new bigness 
came an era of machinery and rush. "The streets 
began to roar and rattle, the houses to tremble, 
the pavements were worn under the tread of 
hurrying multitudes. The old, leisurely, quizzical 
look of the faces was lost in something harder and 
warier." 

"You don't know what it means, keepin' prop- 
erty together these days," says one of them. "I 
tell you when a man dies the wolves come out of 
the woods, pack after pack . . . and if that dead 
man's children ain't on the job, night and day, 
everything he built'll get carried off. . . . My 
Lord! when I think of such things coming to 
me! It don't seem like I deserved it — no man 
ever tried harder to raise his boys right than I 
have. I planned and planned and planned how 
to bring 'em up to be guards to drive the wolves 
off, and how to be builders to build, and build 
bigger. . . . What's the use of my havin' worked 
my life and soul into my business, if it's all goin' 
to be dispersed and scattered, soon as I'm in the 

ground?" 

* * * 

Poor old business ! It does look pretty sordid. 
Yet there is a soul in this giant. Consider its 
power to call forth the keenness in men and to 

[60] 



Sex, Religion and Business 

give endless zest to their toil and sharp trials to 
their courage. It is grimy, shortsighted, this 
master — but it has greatness, too. 

Only, as we all know, it does push so much 
else to one side! Love, spiritual gropings, the 
arts, our old closeness to nature, the independent 
outlook and disinterested friendships of men — 
all these must be checked and diminished, lest they 
interfere. Yet those things are life; and big busi- 
ness is just a great game. Why play any game so 
intently we forget about life ? 

Well, looking around at mankind, we see some 
races don't. The yellow and black — and some 
Latins. But Normans and Saxons and most 
Teutons play their games hard. Knight-errantry 
was once the game. See how hard they played 
that. The Crusades, too, — all gentlemen were 
supposed to take in the Crusades. Old, burly, 
beef-crunching wine-bibbers climbed up on their 
chargers and went through incredible troubles and 
dangers — for what? Why, to rescue a shrine, 
off in Palestine, from the people who lived there. 
Those people, the Saracens, weren't doing any- 
thing very much to it; but still it was thought that 
no gentleman ought to stay home, or live his life 
normally, until that bit of land had been rescued, 
and put in the hands of stout prelates instead of 
those Saracans. 

Then came the great game of exploring new 

[61] 



The Crow's Nest 

lands and new worlds. Cortez, Frobisher, Drake. 
Imagine a dialogue in those days between father 
and son, a sea-going father who thought explora- 
tion was life, and a son who was weakly and didn't 
want to be forced into business. "I don't like ex- 
ploration much, Father. I'm seasick the whole 
time, you know; and I can't bear this going ashore 
and oppressing the blacks." "Nonsense, boy! 
This work's got to be done. Can't you see, my 
dear fellow, those new countries must be ex- 
plored? It'll make a man of you." 

So it goes, so it goes. And playing some 
game well is needful, to make a man of you. But 
once in a while you get thinking it's not quite 
enough. 



[62] 



An Ode to Trade 

"Recent changes in these thoroughfares show that 
trade is rapidly crowding out vice." — Real Estate Item. 

restless Spirit, from whose cup 

All drink, and at whose feet all bow 
May I inquire what you are up 
To now? 

Insatiable, I know, your maw, 

And ravenous of old your shrine; 
But still, O Trade, you ought to draw 
The line. 

Our health, our pride, our every breath 

Of leisure — do not these suffice ? 
Ah, tell me not you're also death 
On vice. 

Ah, tell me not yon gilded hell 

That has from boyhood soothed my grief 
Must fall into the sere and yel- 
low leaf ; 

That dens my wayward comrades know 

Must also share this cruel lot: 

That every haunt of sin must go 

To pot. 

1 who have seen your roaring marts 

Engulf our aristocracy, 
Our poets, all who love the arts 
But me: 

[63] 



The Crow's Nest 

I who have watched your bounteous purse 

Seduce, I say, the world's elect — 
I, in my clear and ringing verse, 
Object. 

You've stripped existence to the bone ; 

You see us of all else bereft; 
You know quite well that vice alone 
Is left. 

You claim our every thought and prayer, 

Nor do we grudge the sacrifice. 
But worms will turn! You've got to spare 
Us vice 



[64] 




Objections to Reading 

When I was a child of tender years — about 
five tender years, I think — I felt I couldn't wait 
any longer: I wanted to read. My parents had 
gone along supposing that there was no hurry; 
and they were quite right; there wasn't. But I 
was impatient. I couldn't wait for people to read 
to me — they so often were busy, or they insisted 
on reading the wrong thing, or stopping too soon. 
I had an immense curiosity to explore the book- 
universe, and the only way to do it satisfactorily 
was to do it myself. 

Consequently I got hold of a reader, which 
said, "See the Dog Run!" It added, "The Dog 
Can Run and Leap," and stated other curious 

[6 5 ] 



The Crow's Nest 

facts. "The Apple is Red," was one of them, I 
remember, and "The Round Ball Can Roll." 

There was certainly nothing thrilling about 
the exclamation, "See the Dog Run!" Dogs run 
all the time. The performance was too common 
to speak of. Nevertheless, it did thrill me to spell 
it out for myself in a book. "The Round Ball 
Can Roll," said my book. Well, I knew that 
already. But it was wonderful to have a book 
say it. It was having books talk to me. 

Years went on, and I read more and more. 
Sometimes, deep in Scott, before dinner, I did not 
hear the bell, and had to be hunted up by some one 
and roused from my trance. I hardly knew where 
I was, when they called me. I got up from my 
chair not knowing whether it was for dinner or 
breakfast or for school in the morning. Some- 
times, late at night, even after a long day of 
play — those violent and never-pausing exertions 
that we call play, in boyhood — I would still try to 
read, hiding the light, until my eyes closed in spite 
of me. So far as I knew, there were not many 
books in the world; but nevertheless I was in a 
hurry to read all there were. 

In this way, I ignorantly fastened a habit up- 
on me. I got like an alcoholic, I could let no 
day go by without reading. As I grew older, I 
couldn't pass a book-shop without going in. And 
in libraries, where reading was free, I always read 

[66] 



Objections to Reading 

to excess. The people around me glorified the 
habit (just as old songs praise drinking). I 
never had the slightest suspicion that it might be a 
vice. I was as complacent over my book totals as 
six bottle men over theirs. 

Can there ever have been a race of beings on 
some other star, so fascinated as we are by read- 
ing? It is a remarkable appetite. It seems to me 
that it must be peculiar to simians. Would you 
find the old folks of any other species, with tired 
old brains, feeling vexed if they didn't get a whole 
newspaper fresh every morning? Back in prirni- 



^ 




CCK <XM<iL -tke. ctfLl\o(i,d C0am|3t> 



tive times, when men had nothing to read but 
knots in a string, or painful little pictures on birch 

[67] 



The Crow's Nest 

bark — was it the same even then? Probably Mrs. 
Flint-Arrow, 'way back in the Stone Age pored 
over letters from her son, as intensely as any one. 
"Only two knots in it this time," you can al- 
most hear her say to her husband. "Really I 
think Ak might be a little more frank with his 
mother. Does it mean he has killed that striped 
Wumpit in Double Rock Valley, or that the Gouly 
family where you told him to visit has twins?" 

There are one or two primitive ideas we still 
have about reading. I remember in a boarding- 
house in Tucson, I once met a young clergyman, 



cLC sXfCi. $ s 




who exemplified the belief many have in the power 
of books. "Here are you," he would say to me, 

[68] 



Objections to Reading 

"and here is your brain. What are you going to 
put into it? That is the question." I could 



(LP 



Sects 4 H<y*<si m&\ 5^ 




a\ 



K2-- 




make myself almost as good as a bishop, he inti- 
mated, by choosing the noblest and best books, in- 
stead of mere novels. One had only to choose 
the right sort of reading to be the right sort of 



man. 



He seemed to think I had only to read Socra- 
tes to make myself wise, or G. Bernard Shaw to 
be witty. 

Cannibals eat the hearts of dead enemy chief- 
tains, to acquire their courage ; and this clergyman 
entered a library with the same simple notion. 

But though books are weak implements for 
implanting good qualities in us, they do color our 
minds, fill them with pictures and sometimes ideas. 
There are scenes of horror in my mind to-day 

[69] 



The Crow's Nest 

that were put there by Poe, or Ambrose Bierce 
or somebody, years ago, which I cannot put out. 



r 




^% _ 

No maiden in distress would bother me nowadays, 
I have read of too many, but some of those first 
ones I read of still make me feel cold. Yes, a 
book can leave indelible pictures. . . . And it can 
introduce wild ideas. Take a nice old lady for in- 
stance, at ease on her porch, and set the ballads of 
Villon to grinning at her over the hedge, or a deep- 
growling Veblen to creeping on her, right down 
the rail, — it's no wonder they frighten her. She 
doesn't want books to show her the underworld 
and blacken her life. 

It's not surprising that some books are cen- 
sored and forbidden to circulate. The surprising 
thing is that in this illiberal world they travel so 
freely. But they usually aren't taken seriously; I 
suppose that's the answer. It's odd. Many 

[70] 



Objections to Reading 

countries that won't admit even the quietest living 
man without passports will let in the most active, 
dangerous thoughts in book form. 

The habit of reading increases. How far can 
it go? The innate capacity of our species for 
it is plainly enormous. Are we building a race of 
men who will read several books every day, not 
counting a dozen newspapers at breakfast, and 
magazines in between? It sounds like a lot, but 
our own record would have astonished our an- 
cestors. Our descendants are likely to read 
more and faster than we. 

People used to read chiefly for knowledge or 
to pursue lines of thought. There wasn't so much 




r^\ 



&}** 



/n\\ \ t**. 

=5a,— -fcLJf >£>0 Uwtlw.wnW 



fiction as now. These proportions have changed. 
We read some books to feed our curiosity but 

[7i] 



The Crow's Nest 

more to feed our emotions. In other words, we 
moderns are substituting reading for living. 

When our ancestors felt restless they burst 
out of their poor bookless homes, and roamed 
around looking for adventure. We read some 
one else's. The only adventures they could find 
were often unsatisfactory, and the people they 
met in the course of them were hard to put up 
with. We can choose just the people and ad- 
ventures we like in our books. But our ancestors 
got real emotions, where we live on canned. 

Of course canned emotions are thrilling at 
times, in their way, and wonderful genius has gone 
into putting them up. But a man going home 
from a library where he has read of some battle, 



aXEuvJfrtLji "*• e*C&v £.&*jl Quid* 




has not the sensations of a soldier returning from 
war. 

[72] 



Objections to Reading 

Still— for us — reading is natural. If wc 
were more robust, as a race, or if earth-ways 



•o 



<K0> -<W«='<- tsQJU <g/>~[ 






oSSL oJ^uk ivcrwr 



£ 



£v 



^~U^ 



M 



were kinder, we should not turn so often to books 
when we wanted more life. But a fragile yet 
aspiring species on a stormy old star — why, a 
substitute for living is the very thing such beings 
need. 



[73] 



On Authors 



The Enjoyment of Gloom 




There used to be a 
poem — I wish I could find 
it again — about a man in a 
wild, lonely place who had 
a child and a dog. One 
day he had to go some- 
where. So he left the dog 
home to protect the child 
until he came back. The 
dog was a strong, faithful 
animal, with large, loving 
eyes. 

Something terrible hap- 
pened soon after the man 
had gone off. I find I'm 
rather hazy about it, but I think it was wolves. 
The faithful dog had an awful time of it. He 
fought and he fought. He was pitifully cut up 
and bitten. In the end, though, he won. 

The man came back when it was night. The 
dog was lying on the bed with the child he had 
saved. There was blood on the bed. The man's 
heart stood still. "This blood is my child's," 
he thought hastily, "and this dog, which I trusted, 

[77] 



(^ 



1 - 

1 I 



The Crow's Nest 

has killed it." The dog feebly wagged his tail. 
The man sprang upon him and slew him. 

He saw his mistake immediately afterward, 
but — it was too late. 

When I first read this I was a boy of perhaps 
ten or twelve. It darn near made me cry. 
There was one line especially — the poor dog's 
dying howl of reproach. I think it did make me 
cry. 

I at once took the book — a large, blue one — 
and hunted up my younger brothers. I made 
them sit one on each side of the nursery fire. 
"I'm going to read you something," I said. 



n^ : 







K V 






[78] 



The Enjoyment of Gloom 

They looked up at me trustfully. I remember 
their soft, chubby faces. 

I began the poem, very much moved; and they 
too, soon grew agitated. They had a complete 



confidence, however, that it would come out all 
right. When it didn't, when the dog's dying 
howl came, they burst into tears. We all sobbed 
together. 

This session was such a success that I read it 
to them several times afterward. I didn't get 
quite so much poignancy out of these encores my- 
self but my little brothers cried every time, and 
that, somehow, gave me pleasure. It gave no 
pleasure to them. They earnestly begged me 
not to keep reading it. I was the eldest, how- 
ever, and paid little attention, of course, to their 
wishes. They'd be playing some game, perhaps. 

[79] 



The Crow's Nest 

I would stalk into the room, book in hand, and 
sit them down by the fire. "You're going to read 
us about the dog again?" they would wail. "Well, 
not right away," I'd say. "I'll read some- 
thing funny to start with." This didn't much 
cheer them. "Oh, please don't read us about the 
dog, please don't," they'd beg, "we're playing 
run-around." When I opened the book they'd be- 
gin crying 'way in advance, long before that 
stanza came describing his last dying howl. 

It was kind of mean of me. 

There's a famous old author, though, who's 
been doing just that all his life. He's eighty 
years old, and still at it. I mean Thomas 
Hardy. Dying howls, of all kinds, are his 
specialty. 

His critics have assumed that from this they 
can infer his philosophy. They say he believes 
that "sorrow is the rule and joy the exception," 
and that "good-will and courage and honesty are 
brittle weapons" for us to use in our defense as we 
pass through such a world. 

I'm not sure that I agree that that's Hardy's 
philosophy. It's fair enough to say that Hardy's 
stories, and still more his poems, paint chiefly 
the gloomy and hopeless situations in life, just 
as Mark Twain and Aristophanes painted the 
comic ones. But Mark Twain was very far from 
thinking the world was a joke, and I doubt 

[so] 



The Enjoyment of Gloom 

whether Hardy regards it at heart as so black. 

He has written — how many books? twenty 
odd? — novels and poems. They make quite an 
edifice. They represent long years of work. 
Could he have been so industrious if he had 
found the world a chamber of horrors? He 
might have done one or two novels or poems 
about it, but how could he have kept on if he had 
truly felt the whole thing was hopeless? He 
kept on, because although sorrows move him he 
does not feel their weight. He found he could 
have a good time painting the world's tragic as- 
pects. He is somehow or other so constituted 
that that's been his pleasure. And he has wanted 
his own kind of pleasure, just as you and I want 
our kinds. That's fair. 

I like to think that the good old soul has had a 
lot of fun all his life, describing all the gloomiest 
episodes a person could think of. If a good, 
gloomy episode comes into his mind while he's 
shaving, it brightens the whole day, and he 
bustles off to set it down, whistling. 

Somebody once asked him if he were as pes- 
simistic as his writings would indicate, and he 
replied that it wasn't safe to judge a man's 
thoughts by his writings. His writings showed 
only what kind of things he liked to describe. 
"Some authors become vocal before one aspect of 
life, some another." (Perhaps not his exact words 

[81] 



The Crow's Nest 

but close to it.) One aspect of life may impress 
you, yet leave you in silence ; another may stimu- 
late you into saying something; but what does 
that prove? It merely shows what you like best 
to talk about, not your philosophy. A cat whose 
life is principally peace and good food and warm 
fires makes hardly any noise about those things — 
at most a mere purr. But she does become vocal 
and wildly so, over midnight encounters. If an- 
other cat so much as disputes her way on a fence- 
top, her tragic shrieks of anguish will sound like 
the end of the world. Well, Hardy has spent his 
life in what was chiefly a peaceful era of history, 
in a liberal and prosperous country; and he per- 
sonally, too, has had blessings — the blessing of 
being able, for instance, to write really good 
books, and the blessing of finding a public to read 
and admire them. Is any of this reflected in his 
themes, though? Does he purr? Mighty little. 
No, he prefers looking around for trouble in 
this old world's backyards; he prowls about at 
night till he comes upon some good hunk of 
bleakness, and then he sits down, like the cat, to 
utter long-drawn-out wails, which give him 
strange, poignant sensations of deep satisfaction. 
They give us quite other sensations but he doesn't 
care. In the morning he canters back in, pleased 
and happy, for breakfast, and he basks in the 
sun, blinking sagely, the rest of the day. And 

[82] 



The Enjoyment of Gloom 

we say, with respect, "A great pessimist; he 
thinks life is all sorrow." 

The principal objection to pessimists is they 
sap a man's hope. As some English writer has 
said, there are two kinds of hope. First, the 
hope of success, which gives men daring, and 
helps them win against odds. That isn't the best 
sort of hope. Many deliberately cultivate it be- 
cause it makes for success, but that is an insincere 
habit; it's really self-hypnotism. It may help us 
to win in some particular enterprise, yes; but it's 
dangerous, like drug-taking. You must keep on 
increasing the dose, and blind-folding your rea- 
son. Men who do it are buoyant, self-confident, 
but some of their integrity is lost. 

The best kind of hope is not about success in 
this or that undertaking. It's far deeper; hence 
when things go against you, it isn't destroyed. It 
is hope about the nature and future of man and 
the universe. It is this hope the pessimists 
would disallow. That's why they repel us. Some 
lessen our hope in the universe; others, in man. 



[83] 



Buffoon Fate 

Suppose that a lot of us were living aboard a 
huge ship. Suppose the ship didn't rock much, or 
require any urgent attention, but kept along on an 
even keel and left us free to do as we liked. And 
suppose we got into the habit of staying below 
more and more, never coming up on deck or re- 
garding the sea or the sky. Just played around 
below, working at little jobs; eating, starving, 
quarreling, and arguing in the hold of that ship. 

And then, maybe, something would happen 
to call us on deck. Some peril, some storm. And 
we'd suddenly realize that our life between decks 
wasn't all. We'd run up and rub our eyes, and 
stare around at the black waters, the vast, heaving 
waves; and a gale from far spaces would strike 
us, and chill us like ice. And we'd think, "By 
Jove, we're on a ship ! And where is our ship 
sailing?" 

Wars, plagues and famines are the storms that 
make us run up on deck. They snatch us up, 
out of our buying and selling and studying, and 
show us our whole human enterprise as a ship, in 
great danger. 

We want to scurry back below, where it's 
lighted and smaller. Down below where our toys 

[84] 



Buffoon 

are. On deck it's too vast, too tremendous. . . . 

We want to forget that the human race is on 
an adventure, sailing no one knows where, on a: 
magical, treacherous sea. 

We have fought our way up from being wild, 
houseless lemurs, or lower, and little by little we 
have built up our curious structure — of learning, 
of art, of discovery — a wonderful structure: at 
least for us monkey-men. It has been a long 
struggle. We can guess, looking backward, what 
our ancestors had to contend with — how the cave- 
men fought mammoths, and their tough sons and 
daughters fought barbarism. But we want to 
forget it. We wish every one now to be genial. 
We pretend that this isn't the same earth that our 
ancestors lived on, but quite a different planet, 
where roughness is kept within bounds and where 
persons wear gloves and have neat wooden doors 
they can lock. 

But it's the very same earth that old Grandpa 
Caveman once wrestled with, and where old 
Grandma Cavewoman ran for her life twice a 
week. 

We've varnished the surface. 

But it's still wild and strange just beneath. 

In a book called "The War in the Air," by H. 
G. Wells (1907) he pictures the world swimming 
along quietly, when bang ! a war starts ! And it 
spreads, and takes in East and West, smashes 

[85] 



The Crow's Nest 

cities, stops everything. And one of the young 
men in the story looks around rather dazed, and 
says in a low voice: "I've always thought life 
was a lark. It isn't. This sort of thing has al- 
ways been happening, I suppose — these things, 
wars and earthquakes, that sweep across all the 
decency of life. It's just as though I had woke 
up to it all for the first time. . . . And it's always 
been so— it's the way of life." 

So that's what we need to get used to, that 
it's that kind of a ship. We ought to have a sense 

of the adventure on which we're all bound. 

* * * 

It's not only war — not by a long shot — that 
gives men that sense. Great scientists have it. 
Great sailors. You can sort out the statesmen 
around you, the writers, the poets, according to 
whether or not they ever have been up on deck. 

Theodore Dreiser has, for instance; Arnold 
Bennett has not. Charles Dickens did not, and 
that's why he is ranked below Thackeray. Com- 
pare James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist" with 
George Moore's "Confessions," and if you apply 

this criterion, Moore takes a back seat. 

* * * 

There's one great man now living, however, 
who has almost too much of this sense : this cos- 
mic adventure emotion. And that man's Joseph 
Conrad. Perhaps in his youth the sea came upon 

[86] 



Buffoon 

him too suddenly, or his boyhood sea-dreams awed 
too deeply his then unformed mind. At all events, 
the men in his stories are like lonely spirits, sail- 
ing, spellbound, through the immense forces sur- 
rounding the world. "There they are," one of 
them says, as he stands at the rail, "stars, sun, sea, 
light, darkness, space, great waters; the formid- 
able Work of the Seven Days, into which man 
seems to have blundered unbidden. Or else de- 
coyed." 

We all have that mood. But Conrad, he's 
given to brooding. And his habit at night when 
he stands staring up at the stars is to see (or con- 
jure up rather) a dumb buffoon Fate, primeval, 
unfriendly and stupid, whom Man must defy. 
And Conrad defies it, but wearily, for he feels 
sick at heart,— because of his surety that Fate 
is ignoble, and blind. 

It's as though the man told himself ghost 
stories about this great universe. He feels that 
it ought to have a gracious and powerful master, 
leading men along fiery highways to test but not 
crush them, and marching them firm-eyed and 
glorious toward high goals. But instead there is 
nothing. The gray, empty wastes of the skies be- 
yond starland are silent. Or, worse, their one 
sound is the footfall of that buffoon Fate. 

The way to meet this black situation, accord- 
ing to Conrad, is to face it with grim steady cour- 

[87] 



The Crow's Nest 

age. And that's what he does. It's stirring to 
discover the fineness of this man's tragic bravery. 
But when I get loose from his spell, and reflect, in- 
dependently, I ask myself, "After all, is this per- 
formance so brave?" 

We must all weigh the universe, each in his own 
penny-scales, and decide for ourselves whether 
to regard it as inspiring or hollow. But letting 
our penny-scales frighten us isn't stout-hearted. 

If I were to tell myself ghost stories until I 
was trembling, and then, with my heart turning 
cold, firmly walk through the dark, my courage 
would be splendid, no doubt, but not finely applied. 
Conrad's courage is splendid — it is as great as 
almost any modern's — but it isn't courageous of 
him to busy it with self-conjured dreads. 



[88] 



The Wrong Lampman 

It is odd, or no, it's not, but it's note-worthy, 
that Shaw has had few disciples. Here is a 
witty, vivacious man, successful and keen: why 
isn't he the head of a school of other keen, witty 
writers? He has provided an attractive form — 
the play with an essay as preface. He has provided 
stock characters, such as the handsome-hero male- 
moth, who protests so indignantly at the fatal 
attraction of candles. He has developed above 
all that useful formula which has served many a 
dramatists— the comic confrontation of reason and 
instinct in man. Yet this whole apparatus lies 
idle, except for the use that Shaw makes of it. 
It is as though Henry Ford had perfected an 
automobile, and then no one had taken a drive 
in it, ever, but Henry. 

The explanation that Shaw's is too good a ma- 
chine, or that it takes a genius to run it, is not suf- 
ficiently plausible. The truth probably is that his 
shiny car has some bad defect. 

It has this defect certainly: in all his long 
arguments, Shaw has one underlying assumption — 
that men could be perfectly reasonable and wise if 
they would. They have only to let themselves; 

[89] 



The Crow's Nest 

and if they won't, it's downright perversity. This 
belief is at the center of his being, and he can't get 
away from it. He doesn't hold it lightly: he's 
really in earnest about it. Naturally, when he 
looks around at the world with that belief in his 
heart, and sees men and women making blunders 
which he thinks they don't need to, he becomes too 
exasperated for silence, and pours out his plays. 
Sometimes he is philosophic enough to treat his fel- 
lows amusedly; sometimes he is serious and exac- 
erbated, in which case he is tiresome. But at 
heart he is always provoked and astonished at men 
for the way they fend off the millennium, when it's 
right at their side. 

He may have inherited this attitude from those 
economists, who flourished, or attempted to flour- 
ish, in the generation before him — those who 
built with such confidence on rationalism in 
human affairs. Man was a reasonable being, they 
said and believed ; and all would be well with him, 
therefore, when he once saw the light. To dis- 
cover the light might be difficult, but they would 
do all that for us, and then it would surely be no 
trouble to man to accept it. They proceeded to 
discover the light in finance, trade, and matters of 
government; and Shaw, coming after them, ex- 
tended the field into marriage, and explained to us 
the rational thing to do in social relations. These 
numerous doses of what was confidently recom- 

[90] 



The Wrong Lampman 

mended as reason were faithfully swallowed by all 
of us; and yet we're not changed. The dose was 
as pure as these doctors were able to make it. 
But — reason needs admixtures of other things to 
be a good dose. Men have learned that without 
these confirmings it's not to be trusted. 

The turn that psychology has taken during 
the last twenty years has naturally been unlucky 
for Shaw as a leader, or influence. He appears 
now as the culminating figure of an old school of 
thinkers, instead of the founder of a new. And 
that old school is dead. It was so fascinated by 
reason or what it believed to be such (for we 
should not assume that its conceptions, even of 
reason, were right) , that it never properly studied 
or faced human nature. 

Civilization is a process, not a trick to be 
learned overnight. It is a way of behavior which 
we super-animals adopt bit by bit. The surprising 
and hopeful thing is that we adopt it at all. Civ- 
ilization is the slow modification of our old feral 
qualities, the slow growth of others, which we 
test, then discard or retain. An occasional inven- 
tion seems to hasten things, but chiefly externally; 
for the internal change in men's natures is slower 
than glaciers, and it is upon the sum of men's 
natures that civilization depends. While this test- 
ing and churning and gradual molding goes on, 
some fellow is always holding up a hasty lamp he 

[91] 



The Crow's Nest 

calls reason, and beckoning the glacier one side, 
like a will-o'-the-wisp. 

Shaw's lamp of reason is one that has an ex- 
tra fine glitter; it makes everything look perfectly 
simple; it shows us short-cuts. He recommends 
it as a substitute for understanding, which he does 
not manufacture. Understanding is slow, and is 
always pointing to the longest way round. 

Shaw has studied the ways of mankind, but 
without enough sympathy. It is unlucky, both for 
him and for us, this is so. Sympathy would have 
made him humorous and wise, and then what a 
friend he'd have been to us. Instead, being bril- 
liant and witty, he has left us unnourished. 



[92] 








The Seamy Side of Fabre 

This is an essay on Fabre— that lovable and 
charming old Frenchman who wrote about insects. 
/ don't say he's lovable, mind you, but that's how 
he is always described. 

He was one of those fortunate men who are 
born with a gift of some sort. His gift was for 
interpretation, but it worked well in only one field. 
Every animal, vegetable and mineral finds an inter- 
preter, sooner or later; some man who so loves 
them that he understands them and their story, 
and finds ways of telling it to the rest of man- 
kind — if they'll let him. Fabre was born with a 
peculiar understanding of insects. 

Even as a baby he was fascinated by grass- 

[93] 



The Crow's Nest 

hoppers and beetles. As a child he wished to 
study them far more than anything else. He 
should have been encouraged to do this : allowed 
to, at any rate. Any child with a gift, even for 
beetles, should be allowed to develop it. But this 
small boy was born in a place where his gift was 
despised; he was torn away from his insects and 
put through the mill. 

Our great blundering old world is always search- 
ing for learning and riches, and everlastingly 
crushing underfoot all new riches and learning. 
It tried to make Fabre, a born lover of nature, de- 
sert her; it forced him to teach mathematics for 
decades instead. The first thing the world does 
to a genius is to make him lose all his youth. 

Well, Fabre, after losing his youth, and his 
middle age too, and after being duly kept back at 
every turn, all his life, by the want of a few extra 
francs, finally won out at sixty. That is to say, he 
then got a chance to study and write about insects, 
in a tiny country home, with an income that was 
tinier still. "It is a little late, O my pretty in- 
sects," he said; "I greatly fear the peach is offered 
to me only when I'm beginning to have no teeth 
wherewith to eat it." 

As it turned out, however, this wasn't true. He 
had not only plenty of time, but in my opinion, too 
much. He lived to be over ninety and he wrote 
and he wrote and he wrote : he wrote more about 

[94J 



The Seamy Side of Fabre 

insects than any one man or woman can read. I 
consider it lucky that he didn't begin until sixty. 

Insects, as every one knows, are the worst 
foes of man. Fabre not only studied these im- 
placable beings but loved them. There was some- 
thing unnatural about it; something disloyal to the 
whole human race. It is probable that Fabre was 
not really human at all. He may have been found 
in some human cradle, but he was a changeling. 
You can see he has insect blood in him, if you look 
at his photograph. He is leathery, agile, dried 
up. And his grandmother was waspish. He 
himself always felt strangely close to wasps, and 
so did wasps to him. I dare say that in addition 
to Fabre's "Life of the Wasp," there exists, if 
we could only get at it, a wasp's Life of Fabre. 

If the wasp wrote as Fabre does, he would 
describe Fabre's birth, death, and matings, but 
tell us hardly anything else about Fabre's real 
life. He would dwell chiefly on Fabre's small 
daily habits and his reactions to the wasp's inter- 
ference. 

"Desirous of ascertaining what the old Fabre 
would do if stung," writes the wasp, "I repeatedly 
stuck my sting in his leg — but without any effect. 
I afterward discovered however I had been sting- 
ing his boots. This was one of my difficulties, to 
tell boots and Fabre apart, each having a tough 
wizened quality and a powdery taste. 

[95] 



The Crow's Nest 

"The old Fabre went into his wooden nest 
or house after this, and presently sat down to eat 
one of his so-called meals. I couldn't see an 
atom of dung on the table however, and though 
there were some fairly edible flowers he never 
once sucked them. He had only an immense 
brown root called a potato, and a 'chop' of some 
cow. Seizing a prong in his claws, the old Fabre 
quickly harpooned this 'chop' and proceeded to 
rend it, working his curious mandibles with sounds 
of delight, and making a sort of low barking talk 
to his mate. Their marriage, to me, seemed un- 
natural. Although I watched closely for a week 
this mate laid no eggs for him : and instead of sav- 
ing food for their larvae they ate it all up them- 
selves. How strange that these humans should 
differ so much from us wasps !" 

Another life of Fabre that we ought to have 
is one by his family. They were not devoted to 
insects; they probably loathed them; and yet they 
had to get up every morning and spend the whole 
day nursing bugs. I picture them, yawning and 
snarling over the tedious experiments, and listen- 
ing desperately to Fabre's coleopterous chatter. 
The members of every famous man's family ought 
to give us their side of it. I want more about 
Tolstoy by Mrs. Tolstoy. And a Life of Milton 
by his daughters. That picture of those unfortu- 

[ 9 6] 



The Seamy Side of Fabre 

nate daughters, looking so sweet and devoted, tak- 
ing the blind poet's dictation, is — must be — 
deceptive. They were probably wanting to go off 
upstairs, all the time, and try new ways of doing 
their hair ; or go out and talk their heads off with 
other girls, or look in shop windows : anything but 
take down old Mr. Milton's poetry all day. They 
didn't know their papa was a classic: they just 
thought that he was the longest-winded papa in 
their street. I have no warrant for saying this, I 
may add. Except that it's human nature. . . . 

Fabre has his good points. He is imagina- 
tive and dramatic, and yet has a passion for truth. 
He is a philosopher, an artist. And above all he 
is not sentimental. He is fond of his insects, but 
he never is foolishly fond. And sometimes the 
good old soul is as callous as can be toward cater- 
pillars. He shows no more bowels towards cater- 
pillars than do his own wasps. Take, for in- 
stance, that experiment when he kept some on the 
march for eight days, watching them interestedly 
as they died of exhaustion. Or his delight at the 
way caterpillars are eaten by the Eumenes wasp. 

This wasp shuts its egg up in a large, prison- 
like cell, with a pile of live caterpillars beside it, 
to serve as its food, first half-paralyzing these 
victims so they will keep still. Alive but unable 
to move, the caterpillars lie there till the grub 

[97] 



The Crow's Nest 

hatches out. (Dead caterpillars wouldn't do 
because this little grub loves fresh meat.) 

The grub, hanging by a thread from the ceil- 
ing, now begins having dinner. "Head downward 
it is digging into the limp belly of one of the cater- 
pillars," says Fabre. "The caterpillars grow rest- 
less," he adds. (There's a fine brutal touch!) 
The grub thereupon, to Fabre's delight, climbs 
back up its thread. It is only a baby; it's tender; 
and when those wretched caterpillars get to 
thrashing around, they might hurt the sweet in- 
fant. Not till "peace" is restored, Fabre adds, 
does Baby dare to come down again. Hideous 
infantile epicure! It takes another good juicy 
bite. 

And if its dinner moans again, or wriggles, it 
again climbs back up. 

Imagine some caterpillar reader shuddering at 
this horror — this lethal chamber where prominent 
caterpillars are slowly eaten alive. Yet scenes 
like this occur all through Fabre, and are described 
with great relish. If he wrote of them in a dry 
professional way, it would sound scientific, and I 
could read it in a cool, detached spirit with never 
a flutter. But he does it so humanly that you get 
to be friends with these creatures, and then he 
springs some grisly little scene on you that gives 
you the creeps, and explains to you that the said 
little scene is going on all the time; and it makes 

[98] 



The Seamy Side of Fabre 

you feel as though there were nothing but red 
fangs in the world. 

Fabre at one time was offered the post of 
tutor to Napoleon Ill's son, but he preferred to 
live in poverty in the country, where he could keep 
up his studies. No money, no honors could tempt 
him away from his work. Perhaps this was noble. 
But it seems to me he made a mistake. In fact, 
this was the greatest and most fatal mistake of 
his life. 

If he had gone to Napoleon, he might have 
moped awhile at first, and felt guilty. But he 
would have gone right on loving insects and want- 
ing to study them. Hence he would have soon 
begun looking around the palace for specimens. 
And this might have led to his discovering riches 
indoors. 

Suppose he had written about that bug that 
takes its name from our beds, and helped us to un- 
derstand its persistent devotion to man. Accord- 
ing to Ealand, the scientist, they are not wholly 
bad. They were once supposed to be good for 
hysteria if taken internally. The Ancients gave 
seven to adults and four to children, he says, "to 
cure lethargy." But the best Ealand can do is to 
give us bits of information like this, whereas Fa- 
bre, if he had lived in his bedroom, could have 
been their interpreter. 

That's his failure — his books are over- 

[99] 



The Crow's Nest 

weighted with bugs of the fields. I have plowed 
through long chapters without getting away for a 
minute from beetles. In bugs of the field I take 
a due interest (which, I may add, isn't much) , but 
the need of humanity is to know about bugs of the 
home. 











[ioo] 



In His Baby Blue Ship 

There are some people who can't enjoy fairy- 
stories, and don't like imagining. They are 
a bit too hard-headed. I don't blame such 
people; they are all right enough in their 
way. Only they ought not to go around say- 
ing fairy-stories are silly. They ought simply to 
let them alone and live nice hard-headed lives. 

It is the same way with soft-headed people who 
cannot enjoy the real world. Not having much 
taste for it, and not getting on too well in it, they 
are apt to call it pretty bad names and to wish it 
were different. I think them too hasty. Before 
they abuse or advise it they should first under- 
stand it. If they can't, they should let it alone 
more, and live in their dreams. 

Or in those of such dreamers as Maeterlinck, 
Dunsany, or Poe. 

The Maeterlinck books constitute quite a beau- 
tiful country. They have long been a favorite 
home for our soft-headed friends. And those of 
us who are of a compound between hard and soft 
enjoy visiting the Maeterlinck coast as we might 
a resort. It is pleasantly unreal; it is varied. 
[IOI] 



The Crow's Nest 

Gentle breezes of sweetness; blue seas, massive 
rocks; and storms too. Here and there a crag, 
or dark castle of terrible grandeur. Is it not 
picturesque? Don't poke at the castles with 
your umbrella ; you might go through the tin ; but 
take it all in the right spirit as you would Coney 
Island. 

Human nature being what it is, there is cer- 
tainly a need for this place. 

There is one little difficulty about the situation 
however. Monsieur Maeterlinck, the proprietor, 
although he makes his home in this region, likes 
sometimes to visit the real world, if but for a 
change. Well, this would be nothing to object to, 
though for him injudicious, but he is such a 
stranger there that he does not at all know his 
place. He takes himself seriously at his home; 
it is natural, I'm sure; but it leads him to speak 
in the real world with a voice of authority. He 
is not in the least offensive about it, no one could 
be more gentle, but he doesn't at all realize that 
his rank here permits no such tone. On the Mae- 
terlinck coast, in the realms of romance, he is 
king. In the real world his judgments are not 
above those of a child. 

It would give me more pleasure (or at any 

rate it ought to, I know) to dwell on his many 

abilities than on this one fault. But this excellent 

man has the misfortune to resemble wood-alco- 

[102] 



In His Baby Blue Ship 

hoi. Wood-alcohol is a respectable liquid; it is 
useful in varnish ; when poured in a lamp it heats 
tea; yes, it has its good side. Yet how little we 
dwell on its uses, how much on its defect; its one 
small defect that it's fatal when taken internally. 

Maeterlinck has for years made a business of 
beautiful thoughts. With some of them he built 
romantic tales that are or were a refreshment. 
But others he embodied in sermons addressed to 
reality. He told us none needed to go to his coast 
for romance, or for purity and beauty and good- 
ness, for we really were full of them. We were 
made in fact of just these ingredients, at least in 
our hearts ; and it followed, he said, that our ac- 
tions should be chosen accordingly. Without 
ever having learned anything much of mankind, 
he described just the way that he felt all mankind 
should behave. He put on the robes of a sage, 
and he sweetened his looks, and his voice became 
tender and thrilling and rather impressive; and 
he wrote about the Treasure of the Humble, and 
Wisdom and Destiny. 

The real world is not easy to live in. It is 
rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear- 
eyed adjustments we fall and get crushed. A man 
must stay sober: not always, but most of the time. 
Those of us who drink from the flasks of the 
sages of dreamland become so intoxicated with 
guff we are a peril to everyone. 

[103] 



The Crow's Nest 

We trust in Hague tribunals for instance, on 
the eve of great wars. 

The flask that Wood-Alcohol Maurice, if I 
may so call him, held so long to our lips in the 
years before 19 14, produced the usual effects of 
joy first, and then blindness and coma. I speak 
from experience. I took some myself and was 
poisoned, and I knew other cases. But it 
poisoned poor Maeterlinck more — I may say, 
most of all — for he had taken his own medicine 
honorably as fast as he mixed it. Owing to this 
imprudence, he found himself, in 19 14, in such a 
deep coma it almost killed him to come out of it. 
His anger at having to wake up and face things 
was loud. He found himself compelled to live 
for a while in the midst of hard facts, and his 
comments upon them were scathing; as all dream- 
ers' are. 

Since then he has gone part-way back to the 
land of romance, and if he will stay there I shall 
not prefer charges against him. He is one of the 
masters of fancy. He can mine fairy gold. But 
any time he comes to this world we're now learn- 
ing to live in, or offers us any more mail-order les- 
sons in sweetness, I think we should urge him to 
go and stay where he belongs. 

There is a poem by Joaquin Miller about Co- 
lumbus that describes his long voyage. It consists, 
as I remember, entirely of groans by the sailors, 
[104] 



In His Baby Blue Ship 

who keep asking Columbus whether he will please 
let them turn back. But Columbus never has but 
one answer, and that is "Sail on." He says "Sail 
on, sail on," over and over again, at the end of 
each stanza. I grant you it must have been mo- 
notonous enough to the crew, who after the first 
week or two probably knew it by heart; but never 
mind, it sounds well to us. It's especially good 
when declaimed. I don't suppose Columbus him- 
self climbed the poop and declaimed it; he mere- 
ly stopped shaving, stuck his head out of the 
chart-room and screeched it, — suitably mixed 
with whatever profanities his day could command. 
But Time, which softens all homely history, has 
beautified this. All the boy Columbuses I ever 
heard recite it, when I was at school, had as noble 
a way as one could ask of telling their crews to 
sail on. 

I did not mean to make so long a digression. 
To get back to Maeterlinck. We ought to pro- 
vide him with a beautiful baby-blue ship. Odd, 
charming allegorical figures should sit on the 
decks, and fenders should hang from the sides to 
ward off bumps of truth. Astern he might tow a 
small wife-boat, as ,a manner should, with its 
passenger capacity carefully stamped on the bot- 
tom. And instead of Columbus, a honey-fed spirit 
of dream should stand in his prow and adjure 
him to sail on, to dreamland. "Dream on, dream 
[ios] 



The Crow's Nest 

on, dream on," she should patter, each time he 
grew restless. I could not take a turn in the 
prow myself, it would be too much honor; but I 
should be glad to take my stand in the gentleman's 
rear, and do all I could to accelerate his progress 
from thence. 



//A J& 




[i 06] 



Problems 



The Man Who Knew Gods 

His case illustrated the risks explorers run. 
Not the physical risks, which are overestimated, 
but the psychological dangers. For years he had 
lived among savages, observing their ways, and 
owing to this he had fallen into a completely de- 
tached mental habit. When he returned to civili- 
zation, he had become a confirmed looker-on. He 
couldn't get back into touch with us. He re- 
mained an outsider. 

I met him but once myself. I was in the pub- 
lishing business at the time, and, hearing that this 
man was in New York, I thought I might as well 
see him about his next book. Telephoning him, 
therefore, at his hotel, I asked him to dine with me 
on the following Friday. 

"Fri-day?" he replied. "What is 'Friday'?" 
(He spoke English perfectly.) 

"It is the twenty-sixth," I answered. 

He said: "The twenty-sixth what? Oh, I 
know," he continued; "Friday is a day of the 
week. Thank you very much, but I do not keep 
track of my dinners so carefully as that." 

This rather odd answer I passed over, at the 

[109] 



The Crow's Nest 

moment, thinking I had misunderstood him; and 
we arranged that he would come some day to my 
office instead, after lunch. 

The next that I heard, he had called there at 
a quarter to five, the hour at which I always 
leave. My secretary explained to him that I had 
gone. 

He looked at my desk, on which lay some un- 
finished business, and said to my secretary, 
"Why?" 

The man courteously responded, "Because it 
is a quarter to five." 

The explorer thereat laughed weirdly and 
went off. 

I now perceived I had to deal with a most ec- 
centric character; but that being a necessary evil 
in the publishing business, I went to his hotel at 
nine o'clock that evening. I found him down in 
the restaurant eating oatmeal and succotash, and 
we then and there had the following extravagant 
interview, — which I give without comment. 

"The book / mean to write," he said, staring 
at me, "is a study of actual religions. Other 
writers have told the world what men of all 
countries suppose their religions to be. I shall 
tell what they really are." 

I said that our house would prefer an account 
of his travels; but he paid no attention. 

[no] 



The Man Who Knew Gods 

"Men's real religions," he announced, "are 
unknown to themselves. You may have heard of 
the Waam Islanders," he leisurely continued. 
"They, for instance, would tell you that their deity 
was an idol called Bashwa, a large crumbling stone 
thing which stands in a copperwood forest. They 
worship this idol most faithfully, on the first of 
each lunar month. No Waam Islander would 
ever acknowledge he had any other God but 
Bashwa. 

"But a stranger soon notices that in every hut 
and cave in that country, hanging beside the 
water-jar, is a long sleeping mat, and on that mat 
a rough pattern is drawn, like a face. 'What is 
that?' I asked them. That? oh, that's G'il,' they 
answered in an off-hand careless way, without any 
of the reverence they would have used if they had 
thought G'il a god. But nevertheless I noted 
that everywhere, throughout that whole island, 
submissive remarks about G'il, were far more nu- 
merous than those about Bashwa. That made me 
begin collecting those references; and presently I 
found that most things of which that tribe ap- 
proved were spoken of as being g'il, or very g'il, 
and things they didn't like were damned as na- 

g'il- 

"It was a little difficult to understand their 
exact conception of G'il, but apparently it typified 

[in] 



The Crow's Nest 

the hut, or the hut point of view. Marriage was 
g'il, and good manners and building materials, 
because they all made for hut-life. Inhospitality 
was na-g'il, and the infidelity of women, and 
earthquakes, and leaks. 

"They sometimes personified G'il and talked of 
him as he. 'G'il loves not Wheesha' (the wind) ; 
'G'il comforts the weary'; 'G'il says, "Get more 
children." ' But all this was only in their fanciful 
moments. At other times G'il was merely the 
mat that they slept on. When I said to them, 
'G'il is your real God,' they laughed at my stu- 
pidity — good humoredly, as though there were 
something, perhaps, in my idea, yet with a com- 
placent assurance that I was preposterous. I did 
not argue with them. One couldn't, you know. 
I simply continued my observations, corroborat- 
ing my theory at every turn. To give you an 
instance: Bashwa is supposed to think highly of 
hunters and sailors, and the Waam-folk always 
profess to think highly of them too. That atti- 
tude, however, is only official, not real. Very 
few of them actually become sailors. The life 
is na-g'il." 

He came to a pause. 

"I wonder whether we, too, have a G'il," I 
said, to humor him. "We shall have to ask 

[112] 



The Man Who Knew Gods 

some of your Waam-folk to come here and tell 



us." 



The explorer looked me over as though he 
were "continuing his observations" of my man- 
ners and customs. "Yes," he said, "there's a 
white man's G'il." 

I regretted having mentioned it. 

"Can't you guess what he is?" he inquired. 
"I say 'he' because, like the Waam G'il, he is 
sometimes personified. Come now! Apply the 
test. He doesn't typify the Waam Islander point 
of view: he isn't a mat. But examine your huts 
and your conversation, and you'll easily spot him. 
No, I'm not talking of money, or power, or suc- 
cess : you may bow down to these, — but not blindly. 
You at least know what you are doing. The wor- 
ship of a G'il is unconscious, and hence more insid- 
ious. Even when an explorer points it out, you 
won't see its importance. It will seem insignifi- 
cant to you. And yet, while the Bashwa to 
whom you build temples is only occasionally de- 
ferred to, this G'il of yours sways you in all things. 
He is the first whom you think of when you rise, 
and the last when you go to bed. You speak of 
your G'il hourly or oftener, all day long. Those 
of you who heed him too little are disapproved of 
by everybody, while the American who succeeds 

C"3] 



The Crow's Nest 

in life is the man who is most careful of G'il. 
"I have habits," he morosely continued, "of do- 
ing certain things, — eating my meals for instance, 
— at quite different hours from those that are 
prevalent here. I find that every one who hears 
of this is surprised at my ways. Their attitude, 
while not openly intolerant, is distinctly disapprov- 
ing. When I ask them why, I get no answer — no 
rational answer. They say simply, 'It's the wrong 
time.' Following up this clue I have noticed that 
not only is the time for performing an act sup- 
posed to be sometimes 'wrong' and sometimes 
'right,' but that the idea of time governs all 
of you, like an absolute tyrant. Even your so- 
called free-thinkers, who lead a life without God, 
never dream of daring to live without a clock and 
a calendar. And just as the Waam-folk are un- 
consciously obsessed by their hut-thought, and see 
everything from that angle, so you have drifted 
into an exaggerated pre-occupation with time. No 
matter what you may want to do, you first look at 
the clock, to see if it is the right time for doing it: 
if it isn't, you wait. You feel that you 'ought' to. 
. . . And each caste among you has its own hours. 
A difference of thirty minutes in the hour at which 
a family has dinner, marks a difference in their 
social scale. 'There isn't time,' you sigh, sub- 

[114] 



The Man Who Knew Gods 

missively, when you give up something you'd like 
to do. 'Time is money,' is one of your phrases. 
'Give me time,' is your prayer. Your big books 
of maxims are full of the respect you feel toward 
him. 'The greatest crime is loss of time.' 'Time 
flies.' 'Time waits for no man.' These are 
only small instances, but their total effect is not 
small, for it is life itself that you sacrifice to this 
fetish. Your G'il actually won't let you take 
good full draughts of existence — he keeps you so 
busy dividing it into months, days, and minutes. 
You imagine that it is because you lead crowded 
lives that you do it. But it is because you're 
always thinking of time that you lead crowded 
lives. 

"You are smiling at me good humor edly, my 
friend. I see that, like the Waam Islanders, you 
think I am preposterous. It is the old story. 
You cannot view yourself from without. You 
will admit that considerations of time enter into 
all your acts, and yet — this seems trivial? And it 
is inconceivable to you that you are its slaves?" 

"My dear sir," I interposed, "a strict observ- 
ance of the laws of time enables a man to live a 
much fuller life." 

"It is what all devotees say of all gods," he 
murmured. 



[us] 



The Crow's Nest 

"We are not its slaves," I continued. "That's 
absurd. We have only a sensible regard for it, 
as every one must.' , 

"Ah ! ah !" he cried. "But you do not say 'one 
must' when your Bashwa speaks. 

"Your Bashwa thinks highly of those who do 
good works without ceasing. You profess to 
think highly of them too; that is your official atti- 
tude. In reality, how very few of you lead that 
life. It happens to be na-g'il, you see. You 
haven't the time. 

"Look about you if you would convince your- 
self. The concrete evidence alone is enough. 
On the breasts or the wrists of your women, and 
in every man's pocket you see a G'il amulet, a 
watch, to remind them of time every hour. What 
other god was ever so faithfully worshipped? In 
every hut in the land you will find his altar, and in 
your large huts you will find one in every prin- 
cipal room. No matter how free and unconven- 
tional their owners may be, no matter how those 
rooms may vary in their arrangement or furnish- 
ings, there stands always in the most prominent 
place the thing called the mantel; on it, ceremoni- 
ally flanked by two candlesticks, or vases, sits G'il, 
the timepiece ; and his is the face of all others you 
most frequently consult. Blind and idolatrous 
tribesman! time is your deity!" 

[116] 



The Man Who Knew Gods 

Well, that's all there was to our interview, for 
at this point he came to a pause and I rose to 
leave, explaining to him, soothingly (though I 
must confess it had a strangely opposite effect) 
that I had to go because it was getting so late. 



[117] 



Annual Report of the League for 
Improving the Lives of the Rich 

To begin with, there is one objection that is 
constantly made to the work of this League. 
Our critics do not understand why we do so 
much for the rich. They grant that many rich 
people are unhappy and lead miserable lives; but 
they argue that if they suffer from riches, it must 
be their own fault. Nobody would have to stay 
rich, they say, if he would just make an effort: 
and if he has too much money and yet won't give 
it away, he must be a bad lot. 

We believe these assertions are mistaken in 
every particular. The rich are not really a bad 
lot. We must not judge by appearances. If it 
weren't for their money they would be indistin- 
guishable from the rest of us. But money brings 
out their weaknesses, naturally. Would it not 
bring out ours? A moderate addiction to money 
may not always be hurtful ; but when taken in ex- 
cess it is nearly always bad for the health, it limits 
one's chance of indulging in nice simple pleasures, 
and in many cases it lowers the whole moral tone. 
The rich admit this — of each other; but what can 
they do? Once a man has begun to accumulate 

[i i a] 



Improving the Lives of the Rich 

money, it is unnatural to stop. He actually gets 
in a state where he wants more and more. 

This may seem incomprehensible to those who 
have never suffered from affluence, and yet they 
would feel the same way, in a millionaire's place. 
A man begins by thinking that he can have money 
without being its victim. He will admit that other 
men addicted to wealth find it hard to be moder- 
ate, but he always is convinced that he is different 
and has more self-control. But the growth of an 
appetite is determined by nature, not men, and this 
is as true of getting money as of anything else. 
As soon as a man is used to a certain amount, no 
matter how large, his ideas of what is suitable ex- 
pand. That is the way men are made. 

Meanwhile the mere having of money has the 
effect on most men of insidiously making them 
more and more dependent on having it. Of course 
a man will hate to believe that this is true of him- 
self, but sooner or later money affects him as 
drugs do a dope-fiend. It is not really much joy 
to him, but it scares him to think of giving it up. 
When you urge a rich man to pull himself to- 
gether, to summon his manhood and try, only 
try, for a while to depend on himself, he tells you 
he'd like to, perhaps, but he hasn't the strength. 
He can't take life that way. He can't face the 
world even a month without money in the bank. 

Even so, why should the rest of us feel it's our 
duty to help ? Why not wait until the rich come 

["9] 



The Crow's Nest 

to ask our advice, if they're troubled? Ah, but 
they wouldn't. They couldn't. The rich have 
their pride. Their unfortunate weakness for 
money may blacken their lives, but they suffer 
in silence. They try to conceal it all from us. 
Their feverish attempts to find some sunshine in 
life every evening, the desperate and futile migra- 
tions they make each few months, and the pathetic 
mental deadness of their gatherings, they try to 
keep private. We might never know to what 
straits many rich folk have come, were it not for 
the newspapers and their kindly society columns. 
Bless their noble insistence on showing us the lives 
of the rich, their portraying with such faithful 
care each detail of their ways! 

It is no easy matter to reform these rich people 
offhand. Just to call at their houses and advise 
them, when you aren't too busy — that would be a 
kindness, of course, but quite far from a cure. 
Besides, they might even resent your little calls as 
intrusions. A good-hearted reformer would cer- 
tainly endanger his comfort, and he might risk 
his life, trying to get in past rich people's butlers.^ 
Don't go in those districts at all, that is this 
League's advice. The drinking, bad language, 
the quarrels and shooting affrays, armed watch- 
men, fast motors — all these make those streets 
quite unsuited for decent folks' use. 

What, then, shall we do? We can't just walk 
[120] 



Improving the Lives of the Rich 

selfishly off and go mind our own business. The 
rich are our brothers. How can the rest of us let 
ourselves be truly happy when our brothers are 
suffering? 

That's where this League steps forward. This 
League will provide ways in which any reformer 
can help. 

(i) It plans to establish neighborhood 
houses in all the rich centers, where those who 
can stand it can go and live just like the rich. 
It will thus enable a few of us to mingle with 
them, day by day, and gradually brighten their 
outlook and better their standards. 

(2) It will send trained welfare workers 
to inspect the most desperate cases and gently 
reform one by one their conditions of living. 

(3) It will instruct volunteers in the best 
methods of rich relief work, especially methods 
of relieving the rich of their wealth. 

The most common type we treat is the man who 
is making great efforts to keep other people from 
getting his money away from him. Such a man is 
always in a nervous, excitable state. In fact our 
statistics show that many died from this strain. 
The typical case gets a temperature daily, from 
what he sees in the papers, about the attacks 
which radical persons are constantly making on 
property. Inflammation sets in, and his outbursts 
grow more noisy and violent. He practically 

[12!] 



The Crow's Nest 

racks himself to pieces. It is a most painful end. 

Other men try to invest money securely. This 
is a strain too. It leads to constant worries and 
losses, no matter what they invest in. Again, 
every man of means is exposed to innumerable 
skillful appeals to devote all he has to some new 
educational uses, or to lend it to friends in great 
need, or give aid to the sick. These appeals are 
so pressing that it wears out a man's strength to 
refuse them; and yet, since they are endless, he 
must. He can't give to them all. He must prac- 
tice ways of dodging the determined askers who 
hunt him and trail him. Rich women, alone with 
their mail on a bright sunny morning, must learn 
to throw even the most pathetic circulars in the 
waste-paper-basket. In other words they must 
harden their hearts. But that hardens their ar- 
teries. It also gives them a disagreeable disposi- 
tion; and that's quite a load. 

It means much to the rich when our League 
takes these weights off their minds. 

But the best way to give an idea of the good 
we are doing, will be to cite just a few special 
cases we have helped in the past: 

CASE I 02 

Case 102 was a wealthy and ignorant girl who 
was found one cold morning exhibiting toy dogs 
[122] 



Improving the Lives of the Rich 

at a show. The dogs had been fed heartily, but 
the poor girl had had nothing to eat but raw car- 
rots, which she had been told she must live on, to 
help her complexion. She had a hardened dis- 
position, dull outlook, and deficient physique. 
Her home was like a furniture warehouse, espe- 
cially her bedroom, a huge, over-decorated cham- 
ber, where she slept all alone. After a friendly 
study had been made of her case, her money was 
quietly taken away by degrees, this being accom- 
plished with the aid of an old family lawyer, who 
was genuinely interested in helping his clients all 
he could in this way; and when this girl had 
thus reached a healthfully destitute state, a hus- 
band was found for her in the janitor of a Hobo- 
ken flat. This man is often kind to her when she 
does well in her work. She is not yet happy, 
but she is interested intensely in life. When 
we last saw this case, she was occupying a dark 
but cozy sub-basement, where she was sleep- 
ing three in a bed and had six children, though 
only four are now living with her, the others hav- 
ing run off; and her days were filled to the brim 
with wholesome toil. 

CASE 176 

Case 176 was an elderly clubman who had for 
many years terrorized his small family, his out- 
[123] 



The Crow's Nest 

breaks being attributed by him to the coffee. He 
said and believed that if his coffee were carefully 
made, he would be content. Investigation showed 
that it wasn't this but his money which was the 
root of the trouble. By nature a fighter, what he 
needed was plenty of personal conflicts, but his 
money had led to his living a sheltered life which 
gave him no scope. He had so much wealth that 
it took two nerve specialists over six months, in 
fact it took them nearly a year, before the amount 
of their bills had eaten up all his property. 
When this was done, however, employment was 
secured for the old gentleman on the police force, 
where his peculiar gift of ferocity could find more 
room for use. The coffee in the station-house, 
fortunately, was execrable, and this stirred him 
to a pitch which soon made him the ablest patrol- 
man in his ward. He was then sent to clean up 
the three toughest districts in town, which he did 
with the utmost rigor in less than four days, com- 
pletely overawing, single-handed, their turbulent 
gangs. At the police parade, recently, he was 
given a medal, the gift of a citizens' committee 
which admired his work. At the head of this 
committee, it may be added, was his former pas- 
tor, who had often reproached him in the old days 
for his profanity and violence. It is these very 
qualities that are now enabling him to do such 
good work, and thus winning him a warm place 

[124] 



Improving the Lives of the Rich 

in the community's heart. Meantime a letter of 
gratitude has been received by the League from 
his family, who have been removed to a quiet in- 
dustrial farm in Connecticut, and whose thank- 
fulness is touching for the peace that has come 
into their lives. 

CASE 190 

Case 190 was a baffling one in some ways. It 
was that of a dyspeptic society woman who spent 
her evenings at functions. She suffered greatly 
from colds, yet felt obliged to wear large, chilly 
collars of diamonds, and to sit in an open opera 
box unprotected from drafts. Although fretful 
and unhappy, she nevertheless objected most 
strongly to trying a life without money; so our 
district visitors had to devise other methods. 

They began by removing several disease-breed- 
ing pets from the home. They then had the 
French chef deported, and taught the woman to 
live on a few simple dishes. These alleviatory 
arrangements resulted in some slight improve- 
ment. Like all half-way measures, however, they 
left her cure incomplete. 

Then, almost by accident, a dealer in invest- 
ment securities lost most of her fortune. The 
balance was taken by some cheery university pres- 
idents, who made her build infirmaries for them 

[125] 



The Crow's Nest 

in spite of rebuffs. Soon after she thus had been 
thrown on her own resources at last, a place was 
found for her to do ironing in a nice warm steam 
laundry, one of the high-grade ones where all the 
corrosives are put in by hand. The light exercise 
this work gives her has cured her dyspepsia. She 
now gets through at nine-thirty evenings, instead 
of sitting up till past midnight; and as she can 
wear a red-flannel undersuit, she has no more 
colds. 

Other cases must be summarized instead of pre- 
sented in detail. Anaemic young belles who used 
to be kept in ill-ventilated rooms every night, are 
sent for and taken to those open piers on the river, 
where they can dance with strong, manly grocers, 
or aldermen even, and where the river breezes 
soon bring back a glow to their cheeks. Gentle- 
men suffering from obesity have been carried to 
an old-fashioned woodyard to work, or, if en- 
tirely unskilled, they are given jobs helping 
plumbers. Hundreds of desperate children have 
been rescued from nurse girls, who were punish- 
ing them for romping and shouting, and shackling 
them in starched clothing. These children we try 
to turn loose on the lively East Side, where they 
can join in the vigorous games of the slums. 
Most rewarding of all, perhaps, are the young 
men of means who have been saved from lives of 

[126] 



Improving the Lives of the Rich 

indescribable folly, and who, through the simple 
abolition of inherited wealth, have been made 
into self-supporting, responsible citizens. 

I cannot say more of the League's work in this 
brief report. But I must end by admitting that 
though we have done all we could, the hidden dis- 
tress that still exists in rich homes is widespread. 
Families continue to engage in poisonous quarrels, 
idleness and chronic unemployment remain una- 
bated, and discontent is gradually darkening the 
minds of its victims, depriving them of true men- 
tal vigor and even of sleep. 

On the good side we have the fact that the na- 
tion appears to be roused. It is not roused very 
much, but it takes more interest than it once did, 
at least. To leave the rich to wrestle with their 
fortunes, alone and unaided, as was done in our 
grandfathers' times, seems unnatural in ours. 

On the other hand, frankly, there is as yet no 
cure in sight. The difficulty is to devise legisla- 
tion which will absorb excess wealth. At first 
sight this seems easy, and many new laws have 
been passed which the rich themselves have pre- 
dicted would immediately reduce them to indi- 
gence. But somehow no law has yet done this. 
So we must just struggle on. 



C I2 7] 



From Noah to Now 

In the days of Father Noah life was sweet — life was sweet. 

He played the soft majubal every day. 
And for centuries and centuries he never crossed the street, 

Much less supposed he'd ever move away. 
But times grew bad and men grew bad, all up and down 
the land, 

And the soft majubal got all out of key; 
And when the weather changed, besides, 'twas more than 
he could stand. 

So Father Noah he packed and put to sea. 

And "Yo-ho-ho," with a mournful howl, said the poor 

old boy to Ham ; 
And "Yo-ho-ho," sang Japhet, and a pink but tuneful 

clam ; 
And "Yo-ho-ho," cried the sheep, and Shem, and a pair 

of protozoa: 
"We're a-going to roam till we find a home that will suit 

old Father Noah." 

There used to be rumors of a country that men 
called Atlantis. It was said to lie far out at sea. 
A magnificent country. The people there were 
happier and freer than anywhere else. It was 
also a land where it was no trouble at all to be 
rich, and where strangers were treated as equals 

[128] 



From Noah to Now 

and welcomed as friends. Until it disappeared 
so mysteriously it was like an America, a land to 
which the people of those ancient times longed to 

go- 

I dreamed once that it had not disappeared, 
after all, but that it was still to be found if you 
took a long voyage, and that it was happier and 
freer and finer than ever. And I wanted to go 
there. I dreamed that America had got itself 
in such trouble that thousands of people were 
leaving to live in Atlantis. This part of my 
dream was a nightmare, and not at all clear, but 
my recollection is that we'd elected Amy Lowell as 
President. And she said her understanding was 
that she'd been elected for life; and when any 
one disagreed with her, she sent a porter around 
to cut off his head. And decade after decade 
passed by, and she danced with the Senate, and 
made us sing to her at sunrise on the steps of the 
White House. And she wrote all the hymns. So 
we wanted to move to Atlantis. 

But it wasn't at all easy to emigrate and give 
up America. In spite of the way that Amy be- 
headed us, we were fond of our country. And 
we knew if we went to another we mightn't come 
back. You can imagine how it would feel, per- 
haps, if you yourself were leaving America, and 
looking for the last time at all the little things in 
your room, and walking for the last time in the 
[129] 



The Crow's Nest 

streets or the fields you knew best. And the day 
before sailing you would go around seeing your 



"to CmJ- o^~J 

w^9 tkesutl. 




friends, and saying good-by to them, knowing you 
wouldn't see them again. And then on the last 
day you'd sit for a while with your mother, and she 
would talk of your plans and your comforts, and 
you'd both be quite calm. And the hour to go 
would come; and you'd kiss her. And she'd sud- 
denly cling to you. . . . 

Then the ship, and the steam-whistles calling, 
and the gray, endless sea. And you up on deck, 
day by day, staring out at the waters; and seeing 
not them but your loved ones, or bits of your 
home: wondering if you'd been courageous to 
leave it, or cold, and a fool. 



[130] 



From Noah to Now 

But the sunsets and dawns, and the winds — 
strong and clean — would bring peace. You would 
think of the new world you were sailing to, and of 
how good it would be there, and of how you would 
prosper, and the long, happy life you would lead. 
. . . And the voyage would come to an end, and 
you'd sail up the harbor. 

Then at the dock, men in strange clothing would 
shout orders at you; "Peely wush, okka Hoogs! 
Peely wush! Okkabab!" and you would dis- 
cover that peely wush meant hurry up, and that 








t * r -^ U 





[131] 



The Crow's Nest 

okka was a swear word and that when they said 
Hoog they meant you. It would be a comic nick- 
name, you know: as we say Chinks for Chinamen. 
And they'd hustle you Hoogs off the ship, and 
shove you around on the pier, and examine your 
eyes and your pocket-books, and at last set you 
free. 

And there you would be, in Atlantis, where 
people were happy. 

But you'd find at the start that Atlantis was 
busy and rough; and parts of the city would be 
dirty and have a bad smell. And then you would 
find that the Hoogs mostly lived in those parts, 
and had to work at pretty nearly anything to pay 
for their lodging. You'd see Americans that you 
knew; Senator Smoot, perhaps, sewing shirts; and 
the Rev. Samuel Drury would be standing in the 
street peddling shoestrings. The reason for this 
would be that until they knew what okkabab 
meant, and could read and write the language of 
Atlantis, and spell its odd spellings, and pronounce 
it without too much of an American accent, they 
couldn't get any but unskilled and underpaid jobs. 
Meantime they would look to a native like cheap, 
outlandish peddlers. Even their own fellow-im- 
migrants would try to exploit them. And instead 
of their finding it easy to get rich, as they'd 
hoped, they would be so hard up that they'd have 
to fight like wolves for each nickel. 

[132] 



From Noah to Now 

Your American clothes would be another diffi- 
culty, because they'd be laughed at. You'd have 
to buy and learn to wear the kind of things they 
wore in Atlantis. And your most polite ways 
would seem rude in Atlantis, or silly; so you'd 
have to learn their rules of politeness, which would 
strike you as silly. And you'd have to learn 
habits of living which would often amaze you; 
and if you were slow to adopt them, they'd class 
you as queer. Their ideas of joking would also 
be different from yours; and you'd slowly and 
awkwardly discover what was fun in Atlantis. 

You'd have to change yourself in so many ways, 
your old friends wouldn't know you. Pretty soon 
you wouldn't be an American at all any longer. 
And yet you would never feel wholly an Atlantisan 
either. Your children would look down on you 
as a greenhorn, and laugh at your slips. They 
would seem unsympathetic, or different, — not 
quite your own children. 

The natives of Atlantis would help you along, 
once in a while, by giving you lectures and telling 
you not to read your home paper. But you, who 
had felt so adventurous and bold, when you start- 
ed, would have to get used to their regarding you 
as a comic inferior. Not even your children 
would know what you had had to contend with. 
Not one of the natives would try to put himself 
in your place. 

[133] 



The Crow's Nest 

Yet how could they? How could any one who 
hadn't gone through the experience? It is a com- 
plicated matter to learn to belong to a strange 
country, when the process includes making your- 
self over to fit other men's notions. 

It was easy for Noah : all he had to get used to 
was Ararat. 



[134] 



Sic Semper Dissenters 

Written during the war-time censorship of our late 
Postmaster-General. 

In the town of Hottentottenville an aged Hottentot, 

Whose name was Hottentotten-tillypoo, 
Was slowly hottentottering around a vacant lot, 

With a vacant look upon his higaboo. 
Now higaboo is Hottentot, as you may know, for face, 
And to wear a vacant look upon your face is a disgrace. 
But poor old Mr. Tillypoo, he had no other place — 

Though I understand it grieved him through and 
thru. 

He was grubbing up potatoes in an aimless sort of way, 

Which really was the only way he had, 
And an officer was watching him to see what he would 
say, 
And arrest him if the things he said were bad. 
For it seems this wretched Tillypoo had gone and had 

the thought 
That his neighbors didn't always do exactly as they 

ought; 
And as this was rank sedition, why, they hoped to see 
him caught, 
For it naturally made them pretty mad. 

[135] 



The Crow's Nest 

So the men of Hottentottenville, they passed a little law, 

Which they called the Hotta-Shotta-Shootum Act, 
Which fixed it so the postman was a sort of Grand Ba- 
shaw, 
Who determined what was false and what was fact. 
And the postman sentenced Tillypoo, and wouldn't hear 

his wails, 
But gave him twenty years apiece in all the local jails, 
And said he couldn't vote no more, and barred him from 
the mails, 
And expressed the hope that this would teach him tact. 

Well, the last I heard of Tilly he was planning not to 
think, 

And he'd tied a piece of string around his tongue, 
And he never went within a mile of either pen or ink, 

And he always stood when any song was sung. 
And maybe you are thinking that his fate was rather tough, 
But what I say is, not a bit, they didn't do enough. 
When anybody differs with you, dammit, treat 'em rough, 

Why, they ought to be bub-boiled alive and hung! 



[136] 



Humpty-Dumpty and Adam 

It is not only every country that has its own 
language. It is each generation. The books 
and family letters of our grandfathers are not 
quite in our dialect. And so of the books of their 
grandfathers, and the letters they wrote. These 
dialects are not so different from ours that we 
can't make them out: they sound a little queer, 
that is all. Just as our own way of talking and 
writing (and thinking) will seem so quaint to 
our descendants that they'll put us away on the 
shelves. 

A few books are written in a tongue that all 
times understand. 

A few of us are linguists and have learned to 
enjoy the books of all ages. 

For the rest, aged books need translation into 
the speech of the day. 

The poets of each generation seldom sing a new 
song. They turn to themes men always hav 
loved, and sing them in the mode of their times. 
Each new tribe of artists perpetually repaints the 
same pictures. The story-men tell the same 
stories. They remain fresh and young. 

The disguise is new sometimes, but never the 
[137] 



The Crow's Nest 

story behind it. A few generations ago, when 
some one wrote Humpty-Dumpty, he was merely 
retelling an old story for the men of his era, one 
of the oldest of stories, the first part of Genesis. 

It is a condensed account — it leaves out the ser- 
pent and Eve and the apple. Some editor blue- 
penciled these parts, perhaps, as fanciful little di- 
gressions. "Stick to the main theme," said the 
editor, "don't go wandering off into frills. Your 
story is about the fall of Adam. Get on. Make 
him fall." 

"I had intended to introduce a love-interest, ,, 
the author of Humpty-Dumpty explained. 

U A love interest!" sneered the editor. "You 
should have waited to be born in the twentieth 
century. These are manlier times. Give us men 
and adventure and fate." 

"And what about the garden," the author 
sighed. "Must that be cut too?" 

"By all means. Change the garden. It's a 
pretty enough idea in romance. But a realist who 
has worked in one, knows that a garden's no para- 
dise. Genesis got it just wrong. Adam should 
have been exiled from town as a punishment, and 
put to slave in a garden." 

"But town isn't paradise either. We've got to 
start him in paradise." 

"Dear me," said the editor. "There's only 
one place left to put the fellow, and that's on the 
wall. 'Adam sat on a wall.' Begin that way." 

[138] 



Humpty-Dumpty and Adam 

"I'm calling him Humpty-Dumpty," the author 
said. "It makes it less tragic. It suggests that 





QUdLzsxdU 



the fall didn't hurt Man so much after all." 

"Which is true," said the editor. 

I wish I had known that author. He had a 
kind heart. He has changed even the unforgiv- 
ing cherubim in the Genesis story to those King's 
men who try in such a friendly way to restore 
Humpty-Dumpty. But the story can't let them. 
That would leave the hero back on his wall 
again — like some Greek philosopher. This other 
way, we think of him as starting out to conquer the 
world. 

Humpty-Dumpty is a story for boys. Cinder- 
ella for girls. In Cinderella five able females, 
two old and three young, contend most resource- 
fully to capture one stupid young man. It is a 
terrible story. The beautiful surface barely masks 
[139] 



The Crow's Nest 

the hungry wiles underneath. But it's true. It 
depicts the exact situation a marrying girl has 
to face; and, even while she's a tot in the nurs- 
ery, it reminds her to plan. 

But these are examples of stories that live, 
and last for more than one age. The mortality 
is heavier in other fields. For instance, philos- 
ophy. Great philosophical works of past eras 
are still alive in a sense, but they dwell among us 
as foreigners do, while Mother Goose has been 
naturalized. 

Modern philosophies are so different. Not 
many centuries ago, in those eras when few 
changes took place, men thought of the world 
as something to study, instead of to mold. It 
was something to appropriate and possess, to be 
sure, but not to transform. 

Humpty-Dumpty sat on the wall, then. He 
hadn't begun his new life. 

There were few inventors in those old times, 
and few of those few were honored. Edison 
among the Greeks would have been as lonely 
as Plato with us. 

Civilization was Thought. It was measured 
by what men knew and felt of eternal things. 
It was wisdom. 

Civilization to-day is invention: it is measured 
by our control over nature. If you remind a 
modern that nature is not wholly ductile, he is 
[140] 



Humpty-Dumpty and Adam 

profoundly discouraged! "We expect to make 
over and control our world." We not only 
assume it is possible, we assume it is best. 

What is democracy but a form of this im- 
pulse, says Professor George Plimpton Adams, 
"bidding man not to content himself with any 
political order thrust upon him, but actively 
to construct that order so that it does respond 
to his own nature"? 

"Not contemplation . . . but creative activity," 
that is our modern attitude. 

Well, it's all very interesting. 

Will and Wisdom are both mighty leaders. 
Our times worship Will. 



Q 

^^ TO THE 
iMtLt-eNlU/VV 







[hi] 



How It Looks to a Fish 



The most ordinary steamship agent, talking to 
peasants in Europe, can describe America in such 
a way that those peasants will start there at 
once. But the most gifted preacher can't get 
men to hurry to heaven. 

All sorts of prophets have dreamed of a heaven, 
and they have imagined all kinds; they have put 
houris in the Mahometan's paradise, and swords 
in Valhalla. But in spite of having carte blanche 
they have never invented a good one. 

A man sits in his pew, hearing about harps and 
halos and hymns, and when it's 
all over he goes home and 
puts on his old wrapper. "I 
suppose I can stand it," he 
thinks. "I've stood corns and 
neuritis. But I just hate the 
idea of floating around any 
such region." 

Some persons may want to 
go to heaven so as to keep out 
of hell, or to get away from 
misery here — if they are in 
great enough misery. Others 
think of it as a place to meet friends in, or as a 

[142] 




3 J vc stood c-crtns 



How It Looks to a Fish 

suitable destination for relatives. But the gen- 
eral idea is it's like being cast away in the tropics : 
the surroundings are «" / ~^n >^*% 

gorgeous, and it s 
pleasant and warm — 
but not home. 

It seems too bad 
that heaven should al- 
ways be somehow re- 
pugnant, and unfit as 
it were for human 
habitation. Isn't there 
something we can do 
about it? 

I fear there it not. 

Assuming that we 
are immortal, what happens to a man when he 
dies? It is said by some that at first the sur- 
roundings in his new life seem shadowy, but after 
a bit they grow solid; and then it is the world left 
behind that seems vague. You lose touch with 
it and with those whom you knew there — except 
when they think of you. When they think of you, 
although you can see them, and feel what they're 
thinking, it isn't like hearing the words that they 
say, or their voices; it's not like looking over their 
shoulders to see what they write; it's more like 
sensing what is in their thoughts. 

But at first you are too bewildered to do this. 

[143] 







The Crow's Nest 

You are in a new world, and you find yourself sur- 
rounded by spirits, telling you that you're dead. 
The spiritualists say that many new arrivals re- 
fuse to believe they are dead, and look around 
skeptically at heaven, and think they are dreaming. 
It often takes a long time to convince them. This 
must be rather awkward. It's as though no one 
who arrived in Chicago would believe he was 
there, but went stumbling around, treating citi- 
zens as though they weren't real, and saying that 
he doubted whether there was any such place as 
Chicago. 

But if there is any truth in this picture, it 
explains a great deal. If the spirits themselves 
cannot clearly take jjn their new life at first, 
how can we on this side of the barrier ever under- 
stand what it's like? And, not understanding, 
what wonder we don't find it attractive? 

You can't describe one kind of existence to those 
in another. 

Suppose, for example, we were describing dry 
land to a fish. 

"We have steam-heat and sun-sets," I might 
tell him — just for a beginning. 

And the fish would think: "Heat? Phew! 
that's murderous ! And oh, that sizzling old 
sun!" 

"We have legs," I might add. 

"What are legs?" 

[i44] 



How It Looks to a Fish 

"Things to walk on. They're like sticks, that 
grow right on our bodies. We do not use fins." 

"What, no fins! Why, with fins, just a flicker 
will shoot me in any direction. Legs are clumsy 
and slow: think of tottering around on such 
stumps ! And you can only go on the level with 
them; you can't rise and dip." 

"Yes, we can. We build stairs," 

"But how primitive !" 

Perhaps he would ask me what drawbacks there 
were to earthly existence; and how he would 
moan when I told him about bills and battles. 

"And is it true," he might say, "that there 
really are beings called dentists? Weird crea- 
tures, who pull your poor teeth out, and hammer 
your mouths ? Bless my gills ! it sounds dreadful ! 
Don't ask me to leave my nice ocean!" 

Then, to be fair, he might ask, "What's the 
other side of the picture, old man? What plea- 
sures have you that would tempt me? What do 
you do to amuse yourselves?" And I would tell 
him about Charlie Chaplin, and Geraldine Farrar, 
and business, and poetry — but how could I de- 
scribe Charlie Chaplin from the fish point of view? 
And poetry? — getting ecstasy from little black 
dots on a page? "You get soulful over that kind 
of doings?" he would ask, with a smile. "Well, 
all right, but it sounds pretty crazy to a sensible 
fish." 

[145] 




-A^ 



The Crow's Nest 

"Business is the main thing here, anyhow," I'd 
answer. 

"And what's 'business' ?" 

"Well, it's — er — it's like this : Suppose you, for 
instance, were to go and catch 
a great many flies — " 

The fish would look pleased 
and smile dreamily. 

"But then not eat them, mind 
you." 

"Not eat them?" 

He w<^<w^fc "No, but put them all out on 

a bit of flat rock, for a counter, 

and 'sell' them to other fish: exchange them, I 

mean — for shells, let us say, if you used shells as 

money." 

The fish would 
look puzzled. "But 
what for, my dear 
sir?" he'd inquire. 
"What would I do 
with shells?" 

"Exchange them 
for flies again, 
see?" 




b do wi«4 ^ 



^7 



"O my soul! what a life!" 



[146] 



A Hopeful Old Bigamist 

There are any number of difficulties and bumps 
along the roads of this world, and yet there are 
plenty of easy-going people who never prepare for 




them. They take all such things as they come. 
Some are buoyant, some fearless. 

But within the last hundred years, large com- 
panies have been organized to go after these 
people, and catch them alone somewhere and give 
them a good thorough fright. These companies 
hire men who are experts at that sort of thing; 
men who make it their life-work to find fearless 
persons and scare them. 

But no matter how ambitious and active these 
experts may be, they cannot catch every one 

[147] 



The Crow's Nest 

personally. It would take too much time. So 
they write gloomy advertisements which are de- 
signed to scare people in general. 

These advertisements are a characteristic fea- 
ture of our civilization. 

Man goes down-town, whistling, sunny morn- 
ing. Happens to pick up a magazine. Imme- 
diately he gets hit in the eye with a harrowing 
picture. Sometimes it is one that reminds him 
he may die any minute, and depicts his widow and 
children limping around in the streets, hunting 
crusts. Or it may be a picture of his house burn- 
ing up, or his motor upsetting. Or an illness, and 
there he is lying flat and weak on his bed. 




\M^\ 








After he has seen a good many of such pictures, 
he grows quiet. Stops whistling. He learns how 
[148] 



A Hopeful Old Bigamist, 

to worry, and he worries off and on till it hurts. 
Then, to get some relief, he makes a contract with 
one of those companies, which provides him with 
what we call insurance, for an annual tribute. 

I hope no one will think I am disparaging in- 
surance, which is a useful arrangement. It en- 
ables many of us to pool our risks and be protected 
from hardship. And the best companies nowa- 
days handle the thing very well. They scare a 
person as little as possible. They just gently de- 
press him. They inflict just enough mental tor- 
ture to get him to put in his money. It is only 
when he is stubborn about it that they give him the 
cold chills. 

Every century has some such institution. The 
Inquisition was worse. 

Like insurance, it had high ideals, but peculiar 
methods. 

Insurance men, however, are steadily improving 
their methods. Instead of always reminding you 
how awful it is not to insure, they sometimes print 
brighter pictures, which show how happy you will 
feel if you do. For instance, a picture of a post- 
man bringing a check to your widow. Your wid- 
ow is thanking the postman, her face full of joy. 
Sometimes the old president of the company is 
shown in the upper left corner, writing out the 
check personally, as soon as he hears of your 
death. Or maybe they leave out the president 
[149] 



The Crow's Nest 

and put in your infant son, for good measure. He 
is playing in his innocent way with his dead fa- 
ther's cane, and the widow, with a speculative eye 
on him, is thoughtfully murmuring, "As soon as 

he is old enough I must insure my little boy too." 
* * * 

In the days before it was possible to insure, 
there was even more gloom. Light-hearted 
people may have worried less, but the rest worried 
more. They could save enough money for the 
future if it was sufficiently distant, but not for a 
serious disaster that might come too soon. This 
darkened their outlook. They had no one to trust 
in but God. 

There has always been a great deal of talk 
about trusting in God, but human beings incline to 
be moderate and cautious in trying it. As a rule 
no one does it unless he has to. 

Not even the clergymen. 

A few years ago a fund was formed, in the Epis- 
copal Church, to pay aged ministers pensions, so 
they would never be destitute. This brought the 
greatest happiness to many of them who were ap- 
proaching decrepitude. Letters came in from 
ministers who had worried in silence for years, 
with no one to trust but the Deity, whose plans 
might be strange. They described how they had 
wept with relief, when this fund was established. 
Printed copies of these letters were mailed to all 
[ISO] 



A Hopeful Old Bigamist 

the good Christians who had contributed, to show 
them how much true joy and happiness their 
money had brought, and how thankful the clergy 
were to have something solid to trust, like a pen- 
sion. 

When a pastor with a pension is in the pulpit, 
looking around at his flock, suppose he sees that 
some of them are needy and have no pensions 
coming? If imaginative enough, he will sympa- 
thize with their poor fearful hearts, and advise 
them as wisely as possible. But there's not much 
to say. The only course for such folk is to try to 
trust God, who is mighty, and meantime be frugal 
and save every cent that they can. 

Some day, he prays, we all shall have pensions. 

* - ,*. * 

And suppose a man isn't religious, what had he 
better trust? His money, or his own native met- 
tle? 

I should like to trust both. 

But they tell me that that is impracticable. 
Won't work at all. I can have some of both, of 
course. Certainly. But I cannot trust both. 

Like all other men I have my own inner foun- 
tain of strength, and it's been a faithful old thing; 
it has done a lot for me. It has vigor in it yet — ■ 
but it isn't big and fiery, or strong. I could only 
have made it work abundantly if I had relied 
wholly on it. If I had done that, it would have 

[151] 



The Crow's Nest 

probably called out my full powers. But instead 
I have relied partly on money, for fear my 
strength might desert me; and that fear has natu- 
rally had an effect on my strength. I work hard, 
but 'with ldss fi|re. Less eajgeirness. ProgresH 
sively less. Any man who doesn't trust his spirit 
will find it will ebb. 

And the same's true of money. Unless you 
are in love with your wealth, it will slip through 
your fingers. If you want to get a whole lot of 
money, worship gold all your days. 

This isn't a sure recipe, I must add, to get a 
whole lot of money. I should be sorry to have 
my readers spring out of their chairs at these 
words, and rush happily off to make money their 
god, so as to be millionaires. It doesn't work so 
quickly or surely as that, I admit. But this much 
is true, anyhow: if you do not care enough about 
money you will hardly grow rich. You must be 
pretty devoted to win a jealous mistress like gold. 

They are both jealous mistresses, that's the 

worst of it. 

It is an awkward predicament. 
* * * 

I don't like to face this problem squarely. I 
don't get it settled. I keep on, like a hopeful 
old bigamist, in love with both mistresses: my 
money and my spirit or mettle. 

I try to soothe each. I say to my mettle, "I 

[152] 



A Hopeful Old Bigamist 

care much more for you than for money: it's true 
that I keep money, too ; but it's you that I love. 
You and I are one, aren't we? Very well, then. 
Come on. Let's be happy." 

And I say to my money, "Now be faithful: for 
God's sake be faithful: don't slip off and desert 
me and leave me alone in the world." She looks 
jealously at me. "Alone?" she says; "how about 
that mettle of yours, you're so fond of?" "Ah, 
my dear," I say sadly, giving her an affectionate 
squeeze, "my mettle is no better than she should 
be. I don't like to talk of it. You are the one 
that I expect to comfort me in my dark moments; 
and I hope you and I will be here together long 
after my mettle has gone." 

There you have my menage. It's been difficult. 
Put I cannot complain. As a bigamist I suppose 
on the whole I've been fairly successful. Yet I 
know I'd have more money to-day — I think a great 
deal more money — if I had been more faithful 
to Mammon, as they call the poor creature. And 
similarly I might have led an heroic, ardent life 
with my mettle, if I had ever trusted it fully. 

That's the trouble with bigamy. 



[153] 



The Revolt of Capital 

Once upon a time all the large corporations 
were controlled by labor. The whole system was 
exactly the opposite of what it is now. It was 
labor that elected the directors, and the officers 
too. Capital had no representatives at all in the 
management. 

It was a curious period. Think of capital hav- 
ing no say, even about its own rates! When a 
concern like the United Great Steel Co., was in 
need of more capital, the labor man who was at 
the head of it, President Albert H. Hairy, went 
out and hired what he wanted on the best terms 
he could. Sometimes these terms seemed cruelly 
low to the capitalists, but whenever one of them 
grumbled he was paid off at once, and his place was 
soon taken by another who wasn't so uppish. 
This made for discipline and improved the service. 

Under this regime — as under most others — 
there was often mismanagement. Those in con- 
trol paid themselves too well — as those in control 
sometimes do. Failures and reorganizations re- 
sulted from this, which reduced the usual return 
to the workers and made them feel gloomy; but 
as these depressions threw capitalists out of em- 

[154] 



The Revolt of Capital 

ployment, and thus made capital cheaper, they had 
their bright side. 

The capitalists, however, grumbled more and 
more. Even when they were well paid and well 
treated they grumbled. No matter how much 
they got, they felt they weren't getting their dues. 
They knew that labor elected the management; 
and they knew human nature. Putting these two 
premises together, they drew the conclusion that 
labor was probably getting more than its share, 
and capital less. President Hairy, of the Steel 
Co., explained to them this couldn't be true, be- 
cause the market for capital was a free and open 
market. He quoted a great many economic laws 
that proved it, and all the professors of economy 
said he was right. But the capitalists wouldn't 
believe in these laws, because they weren't on their 
side, nor would they read any of the volumes the 
professors composed. They would read only a 
book that an old German capitalist wrote — a rad- 
ical book which turned economics all upside-down 
and said that capital ought to start a class war and 
govern the world. 

Discontent breeds agitation. Agitation breeds 
professional agitators. A few unruly loud-voiced 
capitalists climbed up on soap-boxes and began to 
harangue their quiet comrades, just to stir up need- 
less trouble. When arrested, they invoked (as 
they put it) the right of free speech. The labor 
[155] 



The Crow's Nest 

men replied by invoking things like law and order. 
Everybody became morally indignant at some- 
thing. The press invoked the Fathers of the Re- 
public, Magna Charta, and Justice. Excited and 
bewildered by this crossfire, the police one evening 
raided a Fifth avenue club, where a capitalist 
named M. R. Goldman was talking in an incendi- 
ary way to his friends. "All honest law-abiding 
capitalists will applaud this raid," said the papers. 
But they didn't. They began to feel persecuted. 
And presently some capitalists formed what they 
called a union. 

It was only a small union, that first one, but it 
had courage. One afternoon President Hairy 
looked up from his desk to find four stout, red- 
faced capitalists pushing each other nervously into 
his office. He asked them their business. They 
huskily demanded that every capitalist on that 
company's books be paid at least a half per cent 
more for his money. The president refused to 
treat with them except as individuals. They then 
called a strike. 

The results of this first strike were profoundly 
discouraging. The leaders were tried for con- 
spiracy, those who walked out at their call were 
blacklisted, and the victorious labor men soon 
secured other capitalists in plenty, a private car- 
load being brought over from Philadelphia at 
night. The labor leaders became so domineering 

[156] 



The Revolt of Capital 

in their triumph they refused to engage capitalists 
who drank or who talked of their wrongs. They 
began importing cheap foreign capital to supply 
all new needs. But these measures of oppression 
only increased the class feeling of capitalists and 
taught them to stand shoulder to shoulder in the 
fight for their rights. 

The years of warfare that followed were as 
obstinate as any in history. Little by little, in 
spite of the labor men's sneers, the enormous 
power of capital made itself felt. An army of 
unemployed capitalists marched upon Washing- 
ton. The Brotherhood of Railway Bondholders, 
being indicted for not buying enough new bonds 
to move the mails, locked up every dollar they 
possessed and defied the Government. The In- 
dustrial Shareholders of the World, a still more 
rabid body, insisted on having an eight per cent 
law for their money. All great cities were the 
scenes of wild capitalist riots. Formerly indif- 
ferent citizens were alarmed and angered by see- 
ing their quiet streets turned into Bedlam at night, 
with reckless old capitalists roaring through them 
in taxis, singing Yankee Boodle or shouting 
"Down with labor!" For that finally became the 
cry: labor must go. They still meant to use 
labor, somehow, they confusedly admitted, but 
capital and not labor must have absolute control 
of all industries. 

[157] 



The Crow's Nest 

As the irrepressible conflict forced its way into 
politics, Congress made statesmanlike efforts to 
settle the problem. After earnest and thoughtful 
debate they enacted a measure which made the 
first Monday in September a holiday, called Cap- 
ital Day. As this hoped-for cure did not ac- 
complish much they attempted another, by adding 
a Secretary of Capital to the President's cabinet. 
Conservative people were horrified. But Con- 
gress was pushed even further. It was persuaded 
to prohibit employing the capital of women and 
children, and it ordered all Japanese capital out of 
the country. On one point, however, Congress 
was obstinate and would not budge an inch. They 
wouldn't give capital full control of the railroads 
and mills. 

The capitalists themselves were obliged to 
realize, gradually, that this could be at best but 
a beautiful dream. It seemed there was one 
great argument against it: labor men were a 
unit in believing the scheme wouldn't work. 
How could scattered investors, who had not 
worked at an industry, elect — with any intelli- 
gence — the managers of it? Even liberal labor 
men said that the idea was preposterous. 

At this moment a citizen of East Braintree, 
Mass., stepped forward, and advocated a com- 
promise. He said in effect: 

[158] 



The Revolt of Capital 

"The cause of our present industrial turmoil 
is this: The rulers that govern our industries are 
not rightly elected. Our boards of directors may 
be called our industrial legislatures ; they manage 
a most important part of our national life; but 
they are chosen by only one group of persons. 
No others can vote. If Congress were elected by 
a class, as our boards of directors are, this country 
would be constantly in a state of revolution polit- 
ically, just as it is now industrially." That was 
his argument. 

"Both those who do the work and those who 
put in the money should rightfully be represented 
in these governing bodies." That was his cure. 
If corporations would adopt this democratic 
organization, he said, two-sided discussions would 
take place at their meetings. "These discussions 
would tend to prevent the adoption of policies 
that now create endless antagonism between labor 
and capital." And he went on to point out the 
many other natural advantages. 

This compromise was tried. At first it nat- 
urally made labor angry, labor having been in 
exclusive control for so long. Many laborers 
declined to have anything to do with concerns 
that were run by "low ignorant speculators," 
as they called them, "men who knew nothing of 
any concern's real needs." Ultimately, how- 
ever, they yielded to the trend of the times. 

[159] 



The Crow's Nest 

Democratic instead of autocratic control 
brought about team-play. Men learned to 
work together for their common good. 

Of course capitalists and laborers did not 
get on any too well together. Self-respecting 
men on each side hated the other side's ways — 
even their ways of dressing and talking, and 
amusing themselves. The workers talked of the 
dignity of labor and called capital selfish. On the 
other hand, ardent young capitalists who loved 
lofty ideals, complained that the dignity of capital 
was not respected by labor. These young men 
despised all non-capitalists on high moral grounds. 
They argued that every such man who went 
through life without laying aside any wealth for 
those to come, must be selfish by nature and 
utterly unsocial at heart. There always are 
plenty of high moral grounds for both sides. 

But this mere surface friction was hardly heard 
of, except in the pages of the radical capitalist 
press. There were no miore strikes, — that was 
the main thing. The public was happy. 

At least, they were happy until the next prob- 
lem came along to be solved. 



[i 60] 



Still Reading Away? 







Still reading away at your paper? 

Still sitting at editors' feet ? 
(Clay feet!) 
Oh, why do you muse on their views of the news, 

When breezes are sweet in the street? 
There's a bit of cloud flying by in the sky. 

Tomorrow 'twill be far away. 
There's a slip of a girl, see her dance to my song! 

Tomorrow she'll be old and gray. 
Come along ! 
There's music and sunshine and life in the street, 

But ah, you must take them today. 



[161] 



Portraits 



A Wild Polish Hero and the Reverend 
Lyman Abbott 

The books a man likes best are those with 
somebody in them like him. I don't say it isn't a 
pleasure to read about others, but if he too is 
there it's still better. And when he is the hero — 
ah ! It's like living a whole extra life. 

But there is no drawing back, once you put 
yourself into some character — you must do all 




The Crow's Nest 

that he does, no matter how you hate his mistakes. 
I remember once identifying myself with a disso- 
lute Pole, in a novel, who led me a dance that I 
haven't forgotten yet. I ought never to have let 
myself fancy that I was that fellow. He was 
moody, excitable, he drank more brandy than I 
was prepared to; he talked most bombastically. 
He made the most pitiful jokes. But what took 
my eye in him was this : he was sincere with him- 
self. He was only twenty-five years of age, but 
though young, he was honest. When he was in 
love with two women he never dodged facing it 
squarely. He deceived the two women, I grant 
you, but most heroes deceive themselves, too. 
They tell themselves some pretty story in dilem- 
mas like that. This Pole always saw through 
his stories. He questioned his heart, and listened 
with reasonable honesty to its responses. 

Our capacity for 
Yj&fiJ analyzing and criti- 
cizing our natures 
is wonderful. When 
a man is without 
self-awareness, I 
feel toward him as 
I do toward ani- 
mals. 

I admire the ani- 
I am glad I am not one myself — life in the 
[166] 




mal; 



A Wild Polish Hero 







; >CM 



wilds must be awful — but animals are healthy and 
sound; and some are good, and intelligent. Men 
who can't analyze themselves may be good and 
intelligent also. But they are not advanced 
beings. 

The test of a civilized person is first self-aware- 
ness, and then depth after depth of sincerity in 
self-confrontation. "Unhealthy?" Why, certain- 

[i6 7 ] 



The Crow's Nest 

ly! "Risky?" Yes; like all exploring. But unless 
you are capable of this kind of thinking, what are 
you ? No matter how able or great, you are still 
with the animals. 

Here and there is a person who achieves this in 
ways of his own. Not through brain-work alone, 
or most surely, can insight be won. A few have 
by nature a true yet instinctive self-knowledge. 
But that takes a pure soul. The tricks of self-de- 
ceiving are too many and ingenious for most of 
us. . . . 

Speaking of pure souls reminds me of the edi- 
tor of the Outlook, good old Lyman Abbott, 
although his is unfortunately the kind that is 
tastelessly pure. He's as wholesome and good as 
oatmeal is, but the salt was left out. An excellent 
person but wingless; not stupid, but dull. Yet 
— there's something about him — he has an 
attractive integrity. He puts on no airs. He is 
simple, unpretentious, and he's so straightfor- 
ward he makes me respect him. 

Many people respect Lyman Abbott. Yet I 
was surprised to. Well, I had the Rollo books 
given to me, as a child; I had to read them on Sun- 
days ; and the author of those awful volumes was 
Lyman Abbott's father. He wrote books for the 
young. People who write books for the young 
are a tribe by themselves, and little did I suppose 
I should ever live to respect one. 
[168] 



A Wild Polish Hero 

Rollo was a Sunday-school boy. Lyman Ab- 
bott's a Sunday-school man. He combines in 
himself the excellencies and the colorlessness of 
the Sunday-school atmosphere. When it comes 
time to group us as sheep or as goats, I know this, 
there won't be any question that he is a regular 
sheep. No capers for him, except the most in- 
nocent capers. No tossing of that excellent head, 
no kicking up of his heels. There isn't the faint- 
est suspicion of goatiness in him. 

Yet it's strange he's so hopeless: he likes cer- 
tain forms of adventure. He was a bill-collector 
once. And when Kansas was being settled so 
bloodily, in our slavery days, he felt wishful to go 
there. He once did some detective work too, and 
he greatly enjoyed it. But his tastes are all heav- 
ily flavored with moral intentions. 

"My recreations," he says in his book, "I took 
rather seriously. I neither danced nor played 
cards, and after I joined the church very rarely 
went to the theater." He liked music, liked play- 
ing the organ. He implies that he played it how- 
ever to add to his income. He was a lawyer when 
he first felt a call in his heart to the ministry. 
"Had my wife objected to the change I should 
have remained in the law." He has taken ale or 
porter at times, "under doctor's counsel," but in 
general he has been an "abstainer." ("From 
both fermented and distilled liquors," he adds ) 
[169] 



The Crow's Nest 

He never has shaved, never smoked. On the 
other hand, he says, "I had no inclination to be a 
monk"; when not at work in the evening, "I was 
likely to be out, perhaps at a concert or a religious 
or political meeting, perhaps on a social call." 
His father kept a boarding school for girls, and 
that was where Lyman made most of his social 
calls, as a youth. 

He never overdoes anything. "It is a wise 
hygienic rule to spend less strength than one can 
accumulate." (That seems like the perfect recipe 
for not being a genius.) A professional hypno- 
tist once told him he was not a good subject. "I 
never have been," he writes: "I have passed 
through some exciting experiences . . . but I 
have never been swept off my feet. I have never 
lost my consciousness of self or my self-mastery. 
I wonder why it is. I am not conscious of being 
either especially strong-willed or especially self- 
possessed." 

He reads with assiduity, he says, but without 
avidity. He seems to live that way, too. 

His sermons, his book tells us, have had merit, 
but have always lacked magnetism. (You can't 
sweep other people off their feet, if you can't be 
swept off your own.) He likes preaching, how- 
ever. It comes easily to him. 

We are all of us so busy with the small bits of 
life we can envisage, that we don't often think of 
how much we all fail to take in. Lyman Abbott 
[170] 



A Wild Polish Hero 

has been kept busy being a purifying influence. 
Certain other phases of life, accordingly, simply 
do not exist for him. If romance tried approach- 
ing the Reverend Lyman Abbott, at night, it 
would stand no more chance than a rose would 
against disinfectants. 

Suppose that a Board of Eugenics were in 
charge of this nation, what would they do with the 
species this man represents? They would see his 
good qualities — industry, poise, generosity. It 
w T ould be too bad to exterminate Dr. Abbott; it 
is plain we need some of him,. "But," they would 
reflect, "this species is apt to wax numerous. We 
must remember Australia and the rabbits. This 
type might overrun the whole country. We might 
even have to put up barbed-wire, or shoot the 
excess, for us to stay human." 

My own recommendation is to cross a few spec- 
imens with Poles. 



% 





jn* 



[171] 



The Crow's Nest 

Lyman Abbott, calm and dry, 
With your conscientious eye, 
Can it possibly be true 
He who made the Poles made you ? 

In the forest, on the beach, 
You have pondered what to preach. 
Magic nights of piercing beauty, 
You have lectured us on duty. 

In your admirable heart 
Lives a Yearning to Impart ; 
In your veins an earnest flood 
Of listerine instead of blood. 

Lyman, Lyman, do you think 
If you gambled, took to drink, 
Loved a Countess, lost your soul, 
You could ever be a Pole? 



[172] 



Mrs. P's Side of It 

So Prometheus, the Titan, seeing the great need that 
man had of fire, risked all and set out for Olympus, and 
brought thence the flame. 

And warmth, comfort, art and inventions spread over 
the world. 

But as to Prometheus, he was seized by the gods, in 
their wrath, and chained to a rock in the Scythian wilds, 
by the sea. There no ear heard his cries. There he 
raged on alone, year by year, with his eyelids cut off, 
while cold-hearted vultures with great beaks like horns 
tore his flesh. 

It is an interesting thing that Prometheus, who 
is a hero to us, should have been regarded so dif- 
ferently by his contemporaries. Some thought of 
him as merely a sort of social settlement-worker, 
living among men to improve them, in a sleek, 
earnest spirit. Some thought him a common ad- 
venturer. Others a radical. 

As a matter of fact, he was really very much 
like the rest of us. 

The records seem to indicate he was a well-to- 
do prominent citizen, who was active in getting the 
world of his day straightened out. I imagine him 
going around town, in the real-estate business, a 

[173] 



The Crow's Nest 




substantial, respected man, planning highways and 
harbor facilities. Then he gets this idea, about 
bringing down fire from heaven. At first he dis- 
misses it. But he thinks about the advantages of 
fire, and begins to believe he could get it. He 
starts talking to others about it. Every one 
laughs. It is a little too absurd, you know — this 
talk about fire from heaven ! His fellow business- 
men call him a visionary. He of course resents 
that. He defends his plan, and tries to explain 
why it's perfectly practicable, but he does it so 
warmly they begin to lose some of their trust in 
him. The word goes around not to elect him to 
the Chamber of Commerce. The solid men of 
the community begin to avoid him. A famous 



[174] 



Mrs. P's Side of It 

university silently changes its plans, and decides 
not to give Mr. Prometheus that LL.D. degree. 
And finally one of his friends pays him a call, 
after dark, and bluntly and worriedly warns him 
he's queering himself. 

Prometheus goes upstairs, indignant, to talk to 
his wife. He doesn't tell her anything about his 
friend, or the community's criticisms, but he de- 
scribes all over again what a boon fire would be 
to mankind. After an hour of this he has reas- 
sured himself, and forgotten his friend. His eyes 
shine. He looks almost handsome. His wife 
is quite thrilled. She says he is wonderful, and 
no one ever had such a husband. 

But she says it sounds awfully dangerous. 

"Well," he owns, "there's some risk, but we 
ought to look at it impersonally." 

She says: "Looking at it quite impersonally, 
I think you had better not do it." 

"What?" he shouts; "don't you realize what 
a tremendous help fire would — " 

"Oh yes, dear," she says: "the plan's perfect. 
But you shouldn't go. You have such important 
work to attend to, here at home, without that. 
Some younger, less valuable person — " 

"Ah, my dear," Prometheus laughs, "you're 
like every one else. You want to see the world 
helped, and wars won, whatever the cost; but you 

[175] 



The Crow's Nest 

don't want either me or you to pay any part of the 
price. You think all dangerous work should be 
done by some other woman's husband." 

Mrs. Prometheus purses her lips and her face 
becomes obstinate. "I don't think any married 
man has a right to take such risks," she observes. 

"Well, you ought to hear what the single men 
say about that," he retorts. "It's pretty thick to 
expect them to die, they say, for other men's 
wives." 

Mrs. Prometheus shrugs at the shallowness of 
those silly bachelors, and doesn't bother even to 
comment on their point of view. Instead, she 
says tactfully that she sees Prometheus has set his 
heart upon going, and she wants him to feel per- 
fectly free to do just what he likes. Only there 
are certain practical matters that one must con- 
sider. There's the mortgage, and the laundress 
— unless he'd like to have her do the washing 
herself, which she'd be glad to do only he never 
took those stones out of her way, in the brook — 
and there's the bill for that last set of bear-skins 
that she got for the windows; and she doesn't see 
exactly how she can keep the home up by herself, 
if he is to wander around neglecting his real-estate 
business. 

He says he won't be chained by his business. 

She reminds him that she has already explained 

[i 7 6] 



Mrs. P's Side of It 

he's perfectly free. But she just wants to know 
how he wishes her to arrange in his absence. 

"Very well, then," he blazes out, "I will give 
up my plan : let it go ! let men go to the devil ! 
I'm a prisoner, that's what it comes to. Like all 
married men. There isn't a damn one of us that's 



^•N-^ 






Kb ' ? 





allowed to do what the world needs, or anything 
fine and unselfish." 

She says that's unjust. She'd love to have him 
be a great hero, and she always has said so, but she 
doesn't see why he can't be one without leaving 
his wife. 

Prometheus, with a groan at his bondage, walks 
out of the house, leaving her feeling injured and 



[177] 



The Crow's Nest 

wondering at the hardness of men. And he 
stamps up and down the yard, working himself up 
into a state, and filling his mind with dark pictures. 
Must every married man sit at home with his wife 
in his arms, yearning for roving and achievement, 
but yearning in vain? Pegged down, with a baby 
as a peg, and a mortgage as jailer. Must every 
young fellow choose between a fiancee and adven- 
ture ? Even when he does choose adventure, they 
won't let him alone. There will always be some 
girl at a window as he passes by, who will tempt 
him to stop and play dolls with her, and stay in- 
doors for keeps, and wrestle with a mortgage for 
exercise, and give up the road. Prometheus 
swears. He tries to imagine what our epics would 




^N 






$p> t M> P«-<H<^ CU**YI 



[178] 



Mrs. P's Side of It 



ir~ 







be like if wives wrote them: what heroes they'd 
sing. Tidy, amiable, hearthstone heroes, who'd 
always wind up the clock regularly, and never in- 
vent dangerous airplanes or seek the North Pole. 
Ulysses knitting sweaters by the fireside. George 
Washington feeding canaries. . . . 

Mrs. Prometheus sticks her head out of the 
window : "I'll say just one word. I had supposed 
we were partners, who had gone into the home- 
making business." 

He says what good are homes if they emascu- 
late spirited men. 

She says what good are spirited men if they 
make the world homeless. 

"7 don't intend to make the world homeless." 

"No, only your wife." 

Well, Prometheus gives in, of course, and aban- 



[179] 



The Crow's Nest 

dons his plan, as millions of others have done, 
after talks with their wives. But ah, there is an- 
other great force besides wives in the world. 

It happened, as you know, that Prometheus 
didn't get on well with Zeus. They had different 
ideas as to how the world should he arranged. 
Prometheus had more experience, but Zeus had the 
power. Rivalry, combined with dislike, — that is 
the great force I speak of. Zeus didn't wish men 
to have fire. That was enough for Prometheus. 
He told himself how incompetent Zeus was to 
manage the world, how selfish he was, how in- 
different to men's need of fire. And that was 
what braced him, at last, to escape from his wife, 
and bring down an ember from heaven, and 
bestow it upon men. 

"General Rejoicing on Earth," said the news- 
papers, when the deed had been done. To get 
anything from heaven seemed as remarkable then 
as it would now. Prometheus having accom- 
plished something was immediately ranked as 
a hero. The Chamber of Commerce still pri- 
vately thought he had been rather wild, but after 
a debate on the subject they gave him a dinner. 
He was also presented with a loving cup and the 
keys of the city. (He had no use for either, but 
those primitive men thought them honors.) And 
after the public reception Prometheus went home, 
and had another reception behind closed doors 
[i 80] 



Mrs. P's Side of It 

from Mrs. Prometheus, who had had to sell pre- 
serves and take in sewing while he was away. 

Meanwhile everybody was using this new- 
fangled thing, fire, except old folks who were set 
in their ways and who said it was dangerous. And 
presently men found it was dangerous. It wasn't 
just a question of scorched fingers — it burned out 
two caves. It roasted the toes of a lady who went 
to sleep while cooking sliced elephant. And al- 
though Prometheus had warned them and warned 
them about being careless, and had shown them 
exactly how to use it, he was blamed for each burn. 

Some citizens were sarcastic and wrote him 
elaborate letters, thanking him so much for the 
suffering he had caused them and wishing him lots 
of the same. Some were reasonable and patient, 
but said he ought to have perfected this thing, 
before exposing the lives of the community to a 
bungling device. Others were seriously angry. 
They wished him imprisoned. Why should a 
man who had caused so much damage walk 
about, free? They inquired where justice was, 
at that rate; and held a mass-meeting. 

It was owing to this that the gods discovered 
what he had done. A volley of terrible thunder- 
claps at once shook the skies, and Zeus had Pro- 
metheus arrested. He was led off to Scythia — 
the Siberia of those times — without trial, and the 

[181] 



The Crow's Nest 

police left him chained to a rock there, and hur- 
ried back home. And everybody sympathized 
greatly with Mrs. Prometheus, for having a hus- 
band who had wilfully disgraced his poor wife. 
And they tried to be nice to her, but of course she 
was under a cloud, and had to take in more sew- 
ing than ever, and was never asked out. And a 
year or two later some books were written, psycho- 
analyzing Prometheus; and a professor who had 
made a study of the economic interpretation of 
heroes wrote an interesting paper discussing his 
probable motives, pointing out that he must have 
had relatives who wished to sell fire-insurance. 

So his great deed ended in confusion. Like 
other great deeds. All he got was a tumult of 
mixed praise and blame from the crowd; and in 
his dark moments he must have felt completely 
discouraged, and wished that he'd just lived along 
in comfort and minded his business. 

His friend, who had warned him originally, 
thought of him at times. He used to sit at home 
and feel glad that for his part he'd kept out of 
it. Then he would stir up the fire in his grate 
and comfortably get into bed, and forget about 
Prometheus, facing the winds and the vulture. 



[182] 



The Death of Logan 

Cockroaches, like the Wise Men, originally 
lived in the East. They were at first far from 
hardy — wretched travelers, hating changes of cli- 
mate. But when England began trading with the 
Orient, the cockroach grew venturesome, and be- 
gan putting to sea as a stowaway. It was thus he 
reached England. 

He settled down at first in her seaports. Re- 
mained there for years. People inland heard 
of him, or saw him if they went to the coast, but 
supposed themselves immune from his visits. 
Now he owns the whole island. And wherever 
the Englishman has journeyed, or settled, or traf- 
ficked, except perhaps on the ice-floes of Labrador, 
we now find the cockroach. 

We all know his habits. He prefers to live in 
kitchens and bakeries. Eats all kinds of food. 
Eats shoes and the bindings of books. Also eats 
his own relatives. Any relative that isn't good 
and lively is at once eaten up. 

You can tell the sexes apart (if you want to) 
by this: The males don't drag their stomachs 
on the ground the way the females do, and they 
have better wings. Their wings are not good 

[183] 



The Crow's Nest 

enough to use much, but still, they have little ones. 

The most surprising thing about roaches is that 
they live several years. Scientists say maybe five. 
Owing to this they get to know all of a family's 
ways, and can't be caught napping; they have 
plenty of time to study roach powders and learn 
to digest them. They dislike castor oil, though, 
and keep away from where it has been rubbed. 

Cockroaches are intelligent beings. Their na- 
tures are human. They are not like other insects, 
any more than dogs are like other animals. I 
wish some man of science and sympathy would 
interpret their lives. 

That book that I dream of on roaches : will it 
ever be written? Brown Beauty, or Only a Cock- 
roach, by Mary Gook Twillee — a book that little 
children would read with wet eyes Sunday even- 
ings. No, that sounds like a pamphlet from the 
Society for the Prevention of Stepping on Cock- 
roaches. We want nothing humanitarian. Still 
less, a Work on the subject. We want a poet to 
do for the cockroach what Maeterlinck has done 
for the Bee. 

If nobody else will, I shall probably have to do 
it myself. 

# * # 

Since boyhood (I shall begin) I have felt the in- 
justice of men to the roach. Or not men, no; 
but women. Men are in this matter more toler- 
[184] 



The Death of Logan 

ant, more live-and-let-live in their ways. But 
women have condemned the roach not only un- 
heard, but unjudged. Not one of them has ever 
tried petting a roach to gain his affection. Not 
one of them has studied him or encouraged him 
to show his good side. Some cockroaches, for 
instance, are exceedingly playful and gay, but 
what chance have they to show this, when being 
stepped on, or chased with a broom? Suppose 
we had treated dogs this way; scared them; made 
fugitives of them ! 

No, the human race, though kind to its favor- 
ites, is cruel to others. The pale little, lovable 
cockroach has been given no show. If a house- 
wife would call to her roaches as she does to her 
hens, "Here chick-chick, here cock-cock, here 
roaches," how they would come scampering! 
They would eat from her hand and lay eggs for 
her — they do now, in fact. 

"But the eggs are not legible — I mean edible," 
an excited reader objects. How do you know, my 
poor prejudiced reader? Have you ever tried 
them? And suppose they are not. Is that the 
fault of the cockroach or God? 

We should learn that blind enmity is not the at- 
titude to take toward strangers. The cockroach 
has journeyed from Asia to come to our shores; 
and because he looked queer, like most Asiatics, 
he has been condemned from the start. The 

[185] 



The Crow's Nest 

charges are that he is dirty and that he eats the 
food we leave lying around. Well, well, well! 
Eats our food, does he? Is that a crime? Do 
not birds do the same ? And as to his being dirty, 
have you ever kept dogs in your home ? One dog 
will bring in more dust and mud and loose hairs in 
a day, than a colony, an empire, of cockroaches 
will in a year. 

It is easy enough to drive cockroaches away if 
you wish. Not with powder or poison : this only 
arouses their obstinacy. The right way is to im- 
port other insects that prey upon roaches. The 
hawk-ticks exterminate them as readily as wimples 
do moles. The only thing to remember is that 
then you have the hawk-ticks on hand, and they 
float around the ceiling, and pounce down, and 
hide in your ears. 

You may be sure that some insects will live with 
you. It's only a question which kind. 

I remember Mr. Burbank once denied this when 
we talked of the matter. Alluding to the fact 
that the cockroach likes to eat other roaches, he 
said why not breed a roach that wouldn't eat any- 
thing else? When one introduced these into the 
home they would first eat the old timers, and then 
quietly devour each other until all were gone. 

But how could a home remain bare of insects? 
Nature abhors such a vacuum. Some men would 
like to cover the whole world with porcelain tiles, 
[186] 



The Death of Logan 

and make old Mother Earth, as we know her, 
disappear from our view. They would sterilize 
and scrub the whole planet, so as to make the 
place sanitary. Well, I too feel that way at 
times: we all have finicky moments. But in my 
robust hours I sympathize with Nature. A hy- 
gienic kitchen is unnatural. It should be swarm- 
ing with life. (The way mine is.) 

I see a great deal of the roach when I visit my 
kitchen. His habits, to be sure, are nocturnal. 
But, then, so are mine. However, with a little 
arranging, it is simple to prevent awkward clashes. 
I do not like cockroaches on my table at supper, 
for instance. Very well, I merely get me a table 
with carved spiral legs. The roach cannot climb 
up such legs. To hump himself over them 
bruises him, and injures his stomach. And if 
he tries to follow the spiral and goes round and 
round, he soon becomes dizzy and falls with plain- 
tive cries to the floor. He can climb up my own 
legs, since they are not spiral, you say? Yes, but 
I rub castor oil on them before I enter the kitchen. 

The cockroach has a fascinating personality. 
He is not socialistic and faithful, like the ant, for 
example: he is anarchistic, wild, temperamental, 
and fond of adventure. He is also contempla- 
tive by nature, like other philosophers. How 
many an evening, at midnight, when I have wanted 
a sandwich, I have found him and his friends 

[187] 



The Crow's Nest 

standing still, lost in thought, by the sink. When 
I poke him up, he blinks with his antennae and 
slowly makes off. On the other hand, he can run 
at high speed when the cook is pursuing him. 
And he zigzags his course most ingeniously. He 
uses his head. Captain Dodge, of the British 
Navy, who first used this method to escape from 
a submarine, is said to have learned how to zig- 
zag from the cockroaches aboard his own ship. 
They should go down in history, those roaches, 
with the geese that saved Rome. 

Again and again I have tried to make a pet 
of the cockroach, for I believe under his natural 
distrust he has an affectionate nature. But 
some hostile servant has invariably undone my 
work. The only roach I succeeded in taming 
was hardly a pet, because he used to hide with 
the others half the time when he saw me, and 
once in a fit of resentment he bit a hole in my 
shoe. Still, he sometimes used to come at my 
call when I brought him warm tea. Poor fel- 
low! poor Logan! — as I called him. He had 
a difficult life. I think he was slightly dyspeptic. 
Perhaps the tea was not good for him. He used 
to run about uttering low, nervous moans before 
moulting; and when his time came to mate, I 
thought he never would find the right doe. 
How well I remember my thrill when he picked 
one at last, and when I knew that I was about to 
[188] 



The Death of Logan 

see their nuptial flight. Higher and higher they 
circled over the clean blue linoleum, with their 
short wings going so fast they fairly crackled, 
till the air was electric: and then, swirling over 
the dresser, their great moment came. Unhap- 
pily, Logan, with his usual bad luck, bumped the 
bread-box. The doe, with a shrill, morose whis- 
tle, went and laid on the floor; but Logan 
seemed too balked to pursue her. His flight 
was a failure. 

He rapidly grew old after this, and used to 
keep by himself. He also got into the habit of 
roaming around outdoors at night. Hated to 
see other roaches mating by the bread-box, per- 
haps. As he was too big to crawl back in under 
the door when we shut it, he was sometimes 
locked out when he roamed, and had to wait 
until morning. This in the end caused his 
death. One winter evening, blocked at the door, 
he climbed the fire-escape and tried to get in the 
bathroom window. But it chanced to be shut. 
He hung there all night, barking hoarsely — and 
I heard him, but never thought it was Logan. 
When I went to look at the thermometer in the 
morning, there he lay in the snow. 



[i8 9 ] 



Portrait of a Lady 

Elsie has just got back from an expedition to 
the Sea Islands. She had had her eye on those 
islands for a long time, she tells me. They lie 
off the coast of South Carolina, out of the way 
of all traffic, and they looked to her like a good 
hunting ground for African folk-lore. Her eth- 
nological field-work is always taking her off to 
such places. I suppose that that Englishman, 
Selous, used to go around studying maps, and 
questioning natives about the best jungles for 
lions, in much the same way that Elsie constantly 
studies our continent, looking for some corner 
of it that might interest an intelligent person. 
The parts that are civilization to us, are mere 
jungle to her: the houses and street cars are like 
underbrush that she must push through, to get 
to the places where her quarry is, and where she 
really wakes up. In between, she lives in New 
York with us, — she has to, — and conforms to 
our ways, or to most of them anyhow, just as 
Stefansson does with the Eskimos: she wears 
the usual tribal adornments, and beadwork, and 
skins; she's as dazzling as any other beauty, 
in her box at the opera; and she sleeps and eats 
in the family's big stone igloo near Fifth Av- 
[190] 



Portrait of a Lady 

enuc. An unobservant citizen might almost sup- 
pose she was one of us. But every now and then 
her neglect of some small ceremonial sets our 
whole tribe to chattering about her, and eyeing 
her closely, and nodding their hairy coiffures or 
their tall shiny hats, whispering around their 
lodge-fires, evenings, that Elsie is queer. 

When she went south this time, she first placed 
herself "in the hands of the whites," as she de- 
tachedly puts it: that is to say, she became the 
guest of a white family on one of the more civil- 
ized islands. This was a mistake. They were 
interested in her plans, and they didn't in the least 
mean to block them, but they felt it was necessary 
for them to go around with her everywhere. 
They wanted to be sure nothing happened, — and 
Elsie wanted to be sure something did. "They 
guarded me," she exclaimed, over and over, when 
she told me this part of it. I got an impression of 
her tramping off into the wilds, after breakfast, 
to look around for what she was after, in her bus- 
iness-like way; and of worried hostesses panting 
along, following her, — in spite of the cold looks 
they got. 

There were also a number of small difficulties. 
Her smoking, for instance. Her hostesses 
didn't mind — much; but they had a brother, a 
clergyman, just back from France, where he had 
been in the Y. M. C. A. service; and it would 

[191] 



The Crow's Nest 

upset him, they said. So instead of smoking 
downstairs, by the fire, she had to do it up in her 
room; and also burn Chinese incense after each 
smoke, by request. 

This clergyman held family prayer-meetings, 
regularly, which everybody was supposed to at- 
tend; but Elsie did not object. She is always 
interested in ritual. And the singing was often 
of negro spirituals, which she is collecting. She 
has a recording phonograph, nowadays, that 
she takes around with her, to get them. 

This wasn't what she had come down for, 
however. It wasn't enough. And not being able 
to explore without being "guarded" made the 
country no use to her. The game was too shy to 
be stalked with a whole crowd of whites. So in 
order to make a new entrance, she decided on a 
preliminary retreat. She left the islands, went 
back to the mainland, and took a room in a board- 
ing-house. 

There was a lady in the neighborhood who once 
had collected a few negro tales, but who told 
Elsie that the colored folk around there didn't 
tell them now. The lady wanted to be obliging, 
and' called in her cook to make sure ; but the cook 
corroborated her statement: didn't know any, no 
ma'am. 

Elsie formed the opinion that the cook probably 
knew plenty of stories, but would not talk freely 
[192] 



Portrait of a Lady 

to whites. Few or none of them will. She kept 
on making inquiries, however, as to possible 
sources, and finally heard about one old negro 
who was said to be chock-full of folk-lore. Elsie 
got on his trail. She found him one day in the 
street, and she soon won him over. He not only 
told her all he knew, but he stopped a one-armed 
man going by, — a dirty man with a wheel-bar- 
row full of old bottles — who, the old man said, 
knew other stories, and who promptly made 
good, telling several that Elsie took down, while 
she sat on the curb. 

This negro's name was Mr. Jack — at least that 
is how Elsie speaks of him. He had lost his other 
arm after a man had shot him up, he said, skylark- 
ing. But he could do remarkable things with 
his remaining one : open an umbrella, for instance. 
He said that on one of the islands there were peo- 
ple who knew lots of old tales. So Elsie engaged 
Mr. Jack to go there with her, as guide, and off 
they sailed, like the owl and the pussy-cat, only 
with quite other intentions, and they ultimately 
landed on the beach of the island he'd chosen. 
There was no wharf. The Sea Islands are prim- 
itive. They had to land in the surf. There 
were two or three natives on the beach, just the 
way there were when Columbus appeared, but 
they didn't fall down and worship Elsie — as I 
should have done. They just stared, and shuf- 
[193] 



The Crow's Nest 

fled away, and were lost in the bush. So Elsie 
and Mr. Jack pushed on inland, and found a 
negro with a horse, and Elsie gave him some 
sticks of tobacco and bright-colored cloth, or 
whatever currency it is she uses, and added him to 
her expedition. His name was James Bone, and 
he had a cart as well as a horse. They all got in 
this cart and went cruising away into the interior. 

It was raining like mad, I forgot to say, but 
they didn't much mind, and besides it had a result 
in the end that was lucky for Elsie. There was a 
store on this island, and James Bone was heading 
for it, with the idea of depositing Elsie there so 
she could get shelter. But when they got there, 
the white man who kept it said his wife was away, 
and probably wouldn't be back that night because 
of the rain. Elsie wished to stay anyhow, but he 
flatly declined to take her in unless his wife came. 

After making a silent study of his moral ideas, 
which he expressed loudly, and writing them down 
in her notebooks (I hope) for the Folkways So- 
ciety, Elsie quietly went out in the rain again to 
continue her travels. It was now dark, however, 
and Mr. Jack and James Bone were tired. The 
expedition conferred. James Bone said they 
could go to some friends of his, named (I think) 
Peevie, who had a large house with five rooms in 
it. So they steered for this landmark. But when 
they arrived, very late, all the five rooms were 
[194] 



Portrait of a Lady 

found to be full. In addition to the whole 
Peevie family, which was sufficiently numerous, 
there were several Peevie relations and guests 
who had come on for a funeral. But James Bone 
was insistent. He went indoors and stirred them 
up and made a lot of talk and excitement, and 
never stopped until the funeral guests rose and 
went away, in the rain; and with them all the 
relations except old Aunt Justine and her nieces. 
These and the regular family somehow packed 
themselves into three rooms, and gave up the two 
best to Elsie, who promptly retired. I don't 
know where Mr. Jack slept. Maybe under the 
cart. 

This cabin was about the most comfortable 
place Elsie stayed. She could smoke all she 
wished, she had a fireplace, and the cooking was 
good. Her two rooms were only six by ten 
apiece, but all the more cozy. Old Aunt Justine 
who at first had not liked it, thawed after a while, 
and sat around with Elsie and smoked with her 
and told her old tales. She was a picturesque 
ancient, Elsie says, and wore a large clean white 
turban. 

Everybody came and told Elsie all the stories 
they knew. If any one passed on the road, he 
was hailed to come in: "Hi, Numph, d'you 
wanter make a quarter, telling this lady a 
story?" 

[195] 



The Crow's Nest 

"We wouldn't have told you any, though, if you 
had stayed at the store," James Bone said. "We 
don't have no traffic with the white folks, only 
buying or selling. They keep to themselves, and 
we keep to ourselves, 'cept for that." 

Elsie put it all down. "No nexus exists but the 
economic one between the two groups," she wrote. 
Then, having exhausted this island, she packed up 
her notebooks, and she and Mr. Jack put to sea 
again to visit one other. 

This other was an island where Mr. Jack said 
he had relatives, whom he would love dearly to 
see again if they were alive. He had lived right 
over on the mainland without visiting them for 
about twenty years, until Elsie came along and 
roused his energies; but he now felt warmed up. 
When they landed, however, none of his relatives 
were at all glad to see him. He and Elsie wan- 
dered around for a while, getting a chilling recep- 
tion, until late in the day they met some women 
who were opening oysters. One of these ex- 
claimed at seeing Mr. Jack, and gave him a great 
welcome. An old sweetheart, Elsie conjectured. 
Mr. Jack introduced her. These women gave 
Elsie a handful of oysters to eat for her supper, 
and she got out some of her own thick bran cook- 
ies which are so good for the stomach, and they 
sat by the fire and talked together until it was mid- 
night. Then the oyster boat left for the main- 

[i 9 6] 



Portrait of a Lady 

land, with Elsie aboard. And luckily there was a 
man on that boat who knew some valuable stories, 
so Elsie sat up all night taking them down, by a 
ship's lamp, as they sailed. The wind was light 
and it was five hours before they reached port. 

She parted with Mr. Jack, on the oyster-dock 
landing, at dawn. "I stayed wid you to de en'," 
he said; and afterwards mailed her her rubbers. 

There is more to this story, about her visiting 
the Cherokee Indians down there. But I don't re- 
member the Cherokee chapter as well as the old 
Mr. Jack one. Still I hope this gives some kind 
of picture of Elsie's real life. 



[197] 



Grandfather's Three Lives 

A great Englishman died a few years ago, little 
known in America. His name, Sir Charles Dilke. 
A statesman, a radical, a republican; and a strong 
solid man. 

There is one thing that strikes you about some 
of these leaders, in England: the number of ad- 
vantages they have when they're boys, growing up. 
It gives them a tremendous head-start. Charles 
Dilke began meeting great men when he was a 
mere child: the Duke of Wellington, Thackeray, 
Dickens, — I could name a long list. And he had 
the close companionship of a grandfather, a man 
of distinction, who treated him as an equal, and 
devoted himself to his grandson's development. 

A fortunate boy. 

Think of other small boys, who show signs of 
fine brains and strong characters. Are they ever 
introduced to Thackeray or treated as equals? 
No, they're taught to respect their dull fathers 
and their fathers' ideas. They are taught not to 
have any separate ideas of their own. Or at 
best they run wild with no wise elder friend, like 
Charles Dilke's. 

Here is one of his grandfather's letters. 

[198] 



Grandfather's Three Lives 

Shows the tone of their friendship. The boy has 
just won an English Essay Prize, and "they say 
that parts of my essay were vulgar," he writes. 
"My special interest," his grandfather answers, 
"is aroused by the charge of occasional vulgar- 
ity. If it be true, it is not improbable that the 
writer caught the infection from his grandfather. 
With one half the world, in its judgment of 
literature and life, vulgarity is the opposite of 
gentility, and gentility is merely negative, and 
implies the absence of all character, and, in lan- 
guage, of all idiom, all bone and muscle. . . . 
You may find in Shakespeare household words and 
phrases from every condition and walk in life — 
as much coarseness as you please to look for — 
anything and everything except gentility and vul- 
garity. Occasional vulgarity is, therefore, a ques- 
tion on which I refuse to take the opinion of any 
man not well known to me." 

Good for Grandfather! Eh? He was a 
pretty interesting old boy. He might have been 
a great man himself, if he could have brought 
himself up. But Great-grandfather had been in 
the government's service in England, some posi- 
tion in the Navy Department, or the Admiralty, 
as they call it. And when his son grew up, he 
got him a place in the Admiralty too. He meant 
well, but Grandfather might have done better 
without. 

[199] 



The Crow's Nest 

It gave him a berth, and a chance to lie back 
and look on. And while that helped to ripen his 
wisdom, it sapped his initiative. 

He had a fine mind; clear, impartial. Strong 
radical views. He had character, integrity, in- 
sight. A man of much weight. But he saw there 
was much to be learned and observed about life, 
and his instinct was to go slow, and quietly study 
its problems. "Instead," you say, "of imme- 
diately solving them like other young men !" But 
instead, too, — for such was his instinct — of hand- 
ling the problems. He wished to know more and 
feel wiser before he dealt with them. He had the 
preparatory attitude. 

The trouble with the preparatory attitude is 
there's no end to it. There is so much to learn in 
this world that it won't do to wait. If you wait 
to fit yourself before acting, you never will act. 
You will somehow lose the habit of acting. Study 
too conscientiously the one hundred best books on 
swimming, and of course you'll learn a great deal 
about it, but you never will swim. 

This was Grandfather's type. If he had 
been kicked out alone into the world and found 
every one fighting him, and if he had had to fight 
back, and fight hard, from his boyhood, it would 
have taught him the one thing he needed — more 
force for his powers. 

[200] 



Grandfather's Three Lives 

As it was, he remained in the Admiralty. 
Studying life. , 

Grandfather was thirty-seven years old when 




ft Gie.yasCtt.y 
CctfcctZcefc_ 



Great-grandfather died. He (Grandfather) had 
been writing for the magazines for quite a long 
time, — he was only twenty-six when the Quar- 
terly Review editors began to speak highly of him. 
He now bought the London Athenaeum, which, 
though just born, was dying. Under Grand- 
father's editorship it became an important au- 
thority. It was known all over the world soon. 
But Grandfather wasn't. He never signed one 
of his articles, not even pseudonymously. And 
during the sixteen years in which he had control 
of the paper, this remarkable man withdrew alto- 
gether from general society, in order, he said, to 
avoid making literary acquaintances which might 
either prove annoying to him, or be supposed to 
compromise the integrity of his journal. 
[201] 



The Crow's Nest 

That rings hollow, that reason. He doubtless 
thought it true; but it wasn't. He withdrew 
from society, probably, because he liked with- 
drawing. With the gifts of a great man he didn't 
have a great man's robustness. Some kink in him 
held him back, and kept him from jousting and 
tournaments. He should have been psycho- 
analyzed. It may have been such a small kink. 

I doubt if he ever would have married, but it 
happened quite young. He was under nineteen, 
and the pretty girl he married still younger. 
Maybe she married him. They had one son, 
soon after their marriage; but no other children. 

I wonder if Grandfather was a case of sup- 
pressed personality. It wasn't a weak personality. 
It would not stay suppressed. But it didn't come 
out boldly and naturally, and live a full life. Not 
as full a life as its own wisdom and strength made 
appropriate. He achieved several things, and 
they weren't unimportant or small, yet he con- 
stantly slighted his life-work; in fact, hardly spoke 
of it. Modern psychologists do not call this 
attitude modesty, like our nice naive fathers. No, 
they say it comes oftenest from the sexual errors 
of boyhood. For instance, repression. Or 
shame at misguided indulgence. 

This kind of boyhood is unfortunate, but it 
might do small harm, if it weren't for the sad 
sense of guilt with which it stains a man's mind. 
[202] 



Grandfather's Three Lives 

Men try to forget it, and do: but their sub- 
consciousness never forgets. To be cured, a man 
must face and remember his past, open-eyed, and 
see his mistakes philosophically and understand 
better: understand what we all are, and what 
human nature is made of, and how it is distorted 
in youth by a rigid environment. The average 
moralist or parent won't tell us these things. 
But until we have learned them, a good many of 
us feel wicked, and can't put behind us the 
wretched mistakes of our youth. We don't know 
enough to regard our young struggles with sym- 
pathy. Our ignorance makes us believe we have 
blackened our souls. And the man who keeps 
silent and never tells, and hence never learns, 
goes through the world semi-subdued. Never 
gets what it owes him. 

Was Grandfather Dilke such a case? I've no 
warrant for saying so. His conscience may have 
troubled him, possibly, for some quite different 
reason. He may have secretly hated some rel- 
ative whom he should have loved. He may have 
done some small wrong and unfortunately not 
been found out. But whatever the reason was, 
he lived an odd, back-groundish life — for a man 
of his caliber. And his life didn't satisfy him. 
And this was his fault, not the world's. 

The birth of a son, however, in a way gives a 
man a fresh chance. He decides to live a second 
[203] 



The Crow's Nest 

and far better life through his son. Whenever a 
parent feels blue, or is not making good, he 
immediately declares that his hopes are in his 
little son anyhow. Then he has a sad, comfort- 
able glow at his own self-effacement. Oh, these 
shirking fathers ! They allow themselves to give 
way to weariness, or be halted by fears; but ex- 
pect a son, when he comes to such moments, to 
find them quite jolly. He's to make up for the 
weakness of his father, and carry his own bur- 
dens, too ! 

I regret to say Grandfather Dilke sought relief 
in this way. Although young, strong, and 
gifted, he said when his own son was born that he 
then and there committed all his dreams of 
achievement to Baby. Baby was to go out in the 
world and do his papa honor. 

The child was called Wentworth, and it grew 
up sound, healthy, and kind. But when poor Mr. 
Dilke bet on Wentworth, he backed the wrong 
horse. Wentworth didn't have anything in him 
of the statesman or scholar. He was idle at 
studies. No head for them. What he liked 
was athletics. He liked comradeship and enjoy- 
ing life generally — in a nice way, however. A 
simple, conservative-minded and limited soul. 
During his early years in London he was prin- 
cipally known to his friends for never missing a 
[204] 



Grandfather's Three Lives 

night at the opera. And he was devoted to 
shooting-parties. 

Later on, he became still more trying, it would 
seem, to his parent. Instead of remaining in his 
place as a plain disappointment, he began to be 
prominent; and, stupidly, in just the wrong field. 
He became a sort of parody of the man his father 
had hoped he would be. He hadn't the brains, 
for example, to do anything in the learned Athen- 
aeum, but he founded The Gardeners' Chronicle 
and the Agricultural Gazette. He did well with 
them, too, which was irritating. He turned out 
to be a good man of business. 

About this time a National Exhibition of some 
sort was held, and Wentworth was in on it. 
(It was an exhibition of "art manufacturers.") 
Then somebody got the idea of repeating it on a 
large scale and including foreign nations: in fact 
to make it the first of World's Fairs. So Went- 
worth and the others met the Prince Consort, 
to get Royalty's blessing. 

The Prince Consort liked the plan immensely. 
He made it his hobby. Numerous committees 
were appointed, in true simian style, and amid 
endless speeches and palaverings, the thing was 
arranged. Wentworth, except when on shooting- 
parties, worked hard for it. 

This made a great noise; but I doubt if it im- 
[205] 



The Crow's Nest 

pressed Mr. Dilke. It was at bottom cheap stuff 
which any advertiser or promoter could do. It 
sounded well; it made a man prominent, but it 
didn't take brains. What Mr. Dilke had hoped 
or intended for his son I don't know; perhaps 
nothing definite; but he certainly wanted some- 
thing that counted. He wanted him to make a 
contribution to the needs of mankind. Some 
achievement in scholarship, or some hand in the 
steering of England. 

Mr. Dilke was, potentially, anyhow, a big sort 
of man, like a nation's prime minister: a publicist, 
not a mere showman. And for years he had given 
all his thoughts to his son's career. His son had 
been the one he first thought of when he woke in 
the morning, and the last one that stayed in his 
mind when he got into bed. And he hadn't just 
mooned around about him, he had worked for his 
welfare, planned each step of his education, for 
instance, and pondered his plans. 

And then the creature grows up to run The 
Gardeners' Chronicle, and work for World Fairs. 

There were some small advantages. The crea- 
ture was brought into relations with prominent 
men and kings throughout Europe, mostly figure- 
heads, perhaps, but not all; and these relations 
were destined to be of use to the Dilkes later on. 
But it must have seemed awfully silly to Grand- 
father to see Wentworth being presented with 
[206] 



Grandfather's Three Lives 

medals, and honors, and gifts from foreign govern- 
ments. And as though this weren't enough, 
Queen Victoria wished to make him a baronet! 
Mr. Dilke, being a radical, was opposed to his 
taking a title; so Wentworth, who was fifty-one, 
declined it, like a dutiful child. But the Queen 
made a personal matter of it, so he had to accept. 
It seems that he and the Prince Consort had be- 
come quite good friends — both being pleasant, 
gentlemanly, and wooden (at least in some ways) , 
and having in common an innocent love of World 
Fairs; and this had endeared Wentworth Dilke, 
more or less, to the Queen. So, after the Prince 
Consort died, and while she was feeling her grief, 
she pressed this small title on Wentworth because 
the Prince liked him. 

Wentworth was now a 
person and a vastly more 
important man in the pub- 
lic eye than Grandfather 
was. But he and his fa- 
ther lived in the same 
house; and, although Mr. 
Dilke didn't say much, he 
had his own scale of val- 
ues; and, measured by any 
such scale, Wentworth 
was a great disappoint- 
ment. Their daily relations were kindly, consid- 
[207] 



powerfully connected 




The Crow's Nest 

ering this; but Wentworth knew well, all the time, 
he was deemed an inferior. When he was out and 
about, in the public eye, he may have felt like a 
lord, but when he came home nights he had to 
check his pride at the door. 

Meantime he had married and had two sons; 
and Charles, the elder, was bright. So Mr. 
Dilke, the incorrigible, began life all over again. 
He hadn't been satisfied with his own life, and far 
less with Wentworth's, but he planned a third 
career for himself in this promising grandson. 
He didn't merely take an interest in the child, 
or just make him his hobby. He centered his 
whole mind upon him. He made it his business 
in life to develop that infant — in order that 
through him he might at last reach the front row. 

And this time he won. It looked doubtful at 
first; Charles was nervous and frail, and hence 
backward. His mind was too excitable and his 
health too poor to send him to school. That's 
a handicap in England; school associations and 
training count much. However, the boy easily 
mastered his studies at home, and he often met 
eminent men who came around to the house, and 
he made some experiments in literature — in fact, 
wrote a novel. And when sixteen, he met a beau- 
tiful girl, Emilia Strong, whom he worshiped. 
And he traveled, and talked with his grandfather; 
and so he grew up. 

[208] 



Grandfather's Three Lives 

At eighteen his health grew much better: in fact, 
grew robust. He immediately entered Cam- 
bridge, and there he began a new life. This was 
a splendid thing for him, in a number of ways. 
For instance, one of the first things he did was to 
go in for athletics. He had a flat, narrow chest, 
sloping shoulders; but the rowing men trained 
him; and he worked until he became a good oar, 
and could row on a crew. 

He had lived almost entirely with grown-ups 
before going to college, and was much more ma- 
ture and well-informed than the fellows he met 
there. But some parts of his nature had never 
had a chance to come out; his sense of fun, for ex- 
ample. He now began having good times with 
boys of his own age. He worked so hard at his 
rowing that he finally stroked the first crew. And 
"nobody could make more noise at a boating sup- 
per," one of his friends said. He even got into a 
scrape and was deprived of a scholarship he had 
won. 

All these new ways of Charles — except the 
scrape, possibly — must have seemed right and nor- 
mal, and even, perhaps, reassuring to his father, 
Sir Wentworth. But Sir Wentworth became 
alarmed lest they shouldn't please Mr. Dilke. 
He feared Mr. Dilke was going to be disap- 
pointed all over again, by a student who found 
university life too full of pleasure. The unfor- 
[209] 



The Crow's Nest 

tunate baronet, therefore, wrote Charles for 
heaven's sake to be studious. 

He need not have worried. Charles became a 
wonder at studies. And it wasn't just brilliance — 
it was long, steady hours, plus brains and con- 
centration, that did it. One thing that helped 
him do so much was that he never wasted time — 
he used every spare minute for something. He 
1 'would even get in ten minutes of work between 
river and Hall." He not only became a prize 
scholar and oarsman, but won walking races; he 
joined the Volunteers and became a crack rifle 
shot, and went in for debating. 

His votes and speeches in the debates show the 
trend of his mind, which was balanced yet radical, 
like his grandfather's, and always progressive. 
The American Civil War, which was then being 
fought, was debated; and the undergraduates 
voted for the Confederate side, three to one. 
This was the general feeling in England. But 
Charles was for the North. Again, when Lord 
Palmerston was helping to start the Greek 
monarchy, Charles spoke in favor of a Greek 
republic, in a college debate. 

He wrote long letters to his grandfather reg- 
ularly about studies and politics, and sent him able 
analyses and criticisms of articles in the Athen- 
aeum. The old man at first had been rather silent 
because of the athletics; but as Charles' mind de- 
[>io] 



Grandfather's Three Lives 

veloped, and as he continued winning prizes in 
studies, Mr. Dilke grew happier and happier. 
They were forever corresponding, and were on the 
most affectionate terms. 

Then, one day, a telegram came for Charles, 
and he hurried home. Wentworth was on the 
lawn, crying. "He lives only to see you," he said. 

"I went upstairs," Charles wrote afterward, 
"and sat down by the sofa on which lay the Grand, 
looking haggard, but still a noble wreck. I took 
his hand, and he began to talk of trivial matters. 
... He seemed to be testing his strength, for 
at last he said: 'I shall be able to talk to-morrow; 
I may last some weeks; but were it not for the 
pang that all of you would feel, I should prefer 
that it should end at once. I have had a good 
time of it.' " 

The next day they had their last talk. Mr. 
Dilke made his boy a present he had planned for 
his birthday, and entrusted him with the disposi- 
tion of his papers and manuscripts. And he told 
him, "I have nothing more to say but that you 
have fulfilled — my every hope — beyond all meas- 
ure — and — I am deeply — grateful." 

So he died. 

Charles went back to Cambridge and finished 

his course with the greatest distinction. He 

then began contributing to the Athenaeum, and 

planning to write books, U A History of Radical- 

[211] 



The Crow's Nest 

ism," for example. "The Effects Upon Radical- 
ism of Increased Facility of Communication." 
"Development of the Principle of Love of Coun- 
try Into That of Love of Man." In politics he 
took the Irish Catholic side of the Irish Question; 
he wrote strongly in favor of removing the polit- 
ical disabilities of women, and he criticized the 
severity of white men toward natives in the 
tropics. 

He also had a row with his father. Sir Went- 
worth was vexed because Charles didn't wish to 
come to his shooting-parties. 

When he was twenty-two, Charles made a tour 
of the world, and recorded his observations in a 
remarkable book. It was a solid, serious volume, 
yet written in a vein of high spirits. It dealt with 
Canada, the United States — East, South, and 
West — New Zealand, Australia, Ceylon and In- 
dia ; it was a study of what Anglo-Saxons were do- 
ing in these great civilizations. Charles mailed 
his MSS. to England, and Sir Wentworth took it 
upon himself to correct the proofs, in order to 
hurry the book through the press. The result 
was a crop of blunders. But still, it was an enor- 
mous success. It ran through three editions 
rapidly, and brought Charles the friendship of 
some great men. 

Meantime in his twenty-fifth year he was elected 
to Parliament — at the very election at which Sir 
[212] 



Grandfather's Three Lives 

Wentworth lost his seat, by the way. Charles 
advocated laws ('way back in the Sixties) to pro- 
hibit child labor, to recognize trades unions, and 
stop the buying of commissions in the army. He 
advised English workmen not to join the regular 
political parties, but to start a Labor Party of 
their own and gain influence that way. He also 
upset his father a good deal by urging amendments 
to the game laws. His first speech in Parliament 
was on some dry, technical subject, but he showed 
himself so well-informed, so full of detailed 
knowledge and foreign comparisons, that he was 
immediately put on a committee and began to 
make his way in the House. 

It's interesting to look back and see how able 
men get their start. 

In his twenty-eighth year this able man got into 
frightful hot water. He said publicly that a mis- 
erable moral and political tone resulted from the 
nation's retaining a lot of sinecure offices — Hered- 
itary Grand Falconer, and all that sort of thing. 
He pointed out that the Duke of Edinburgh had 
been given a naval command without much naval 
training, and he advocated promotion by merit 
instead of by claims due to birth. He allowed 
himself to criticize some large grants of money to 
the monarchy. His remarks indicated that theo- 
retically he preferred a republic. For this he was 
denounced by the papers, and socially shunned. 
[213]' 



The Crow's Nest 

He was accused of disloyalty and treason, with the 
greatest heat, everywhere. His name was a by- 
word. The Prince of Wales happened about this 
time to get very ill, and this added still further to 
the anger men felt at Charles Dilke. 

He didn't back down. He went out and made 
speeches to workmen, repeating his anti-King 
criticisms. There was rioting by Tory roughs — 
iron bars thrown — men injured and killed. 
Crowds collected who swore that Dilke should 
not get away alive from the hall. He waited 
till the excitement was hottest, then came out the 
main door alone, stood quietly looking at them, 
lit a cigar, and walked off. 

He did, however, gradually calm down the 
nation in one way, by showing them that, though 
he objected to monarchical errors, he didn't wish 
to upset the monarchy while it suited the people. 
He thought it absurd, but it would be still more 
absurd to upset it — that is to say, while those 
governed wanted it. This attitude, and time 
(several years of it) slowly stilled the excitement. 
The net result was to make this man a notable and 
recognized power. 

His power kept growing. His influence was 
great in the House. His views were strong, but 
reasoned and sane, and his industry endless. He 
was now forty-two. Gladstone, with whom he 
tilted at first, picked him as his successor. It 
[214] 



Grandfather's Three Lives 

looked as though this great progressive would be 
premier of England. 

Then, in a night, the Fates crushed him. Re- 
turning home from a dinner in his honor, he 
found a letter there, waiting. 

It said that (the wife of a member of Parliament 
had confessed to her husband that she had been 
unfaithful to him with Charles Dilke soon after 
her marriage. 

This, of course, meant a scandal. And a scan- 
dal meant he couldn't be premier. He couldn't 
even sit in the cabinet. His career was destroyed. 

Sir Charles (as he now was) had been married, 
but his wife had soon died. After ten years as a 
widower, he had become engaged to Emilia Strong 
— you remember? — the same Emilia whom he had 
worshiped* when he was sixteen. (She had been 
married, too, in the meantime, but she now was a 
widow.) His principal concern with this blow 
was not to let it hurt her. He sent her the news, 
told her he was innocent, and added, "I feel this 
may kill you — and it will kill me, either if it kills 
you or if you don't believe me." 

She stood by him, married him. They had 
nineteen years of each other. He was sixty-one 
when she died in his arms. He lived to be sixty- 
eight. 

He never could clear his name of the scandal, 
though he took it to court. They failed to show 

[215] 



The Crow's Nest 

he was guilty, but he couldn't prove that he wasn't. 
So he never was premier, and he never again sat 
in the cabinet. 

His friends said his whole career showed 
that the scandal was false. They stood by him 
strongly. But the People, whom he would have 
served with such courage, did not. 



[216] 



Story of a Farmer 

There once was a tall husky fellow, big hands 
and feet; not much education. (Though he came 
of a fairly good family.) He had very bad teeth. 
His father had left him a farm, and that was his 
great interest — farming. He had the kind of 
feeling about farming that a good shoemaker has 
about shoes. Of course, he complained more or 
less, and felt dissatisfied and discouraged, and 
threatened to give up his farm when things went 
badly. But there was nothing else he could have 
willingly turned to; and he was never weary of 
experimenting with different ways of planting his 
crops. 

He was a sound-thinking man, and men trusted 
him. He grew prominent. Held some offices. 
As a result, when he was forty-three he had to go 
awayl from home for some years. This was while 
he was managing an army. And I ought to 
explain that it was a hard army to manage. It 
was not only badly equipped and poorly trained, 
but sometimes the men would run away in the 
midst of a battle. That made this man angry. 
He was ordinarily composed and benign in his 
manner, but when he saw the soldiers showing fear 
[217] 



The Crow's Nest 

he used to become violently aroused, and would 
swear at them and strike them. His nature 
loathed cowardice. He cared nothing for danger 
himself, perhaps because of his teeth, and he 
couldn't understand why these other men dreaded 
to die. 

All his life, when he was at table with others, 
he used to sit there in silence, drumming on the 
cloth with his fork. He seldom joked. He was 
hardly ever playful. People said he was too 
dignified, too solemn. Well ! one isn't apt to be 
a comedian, precisely, with toothache. He was 
only twenty-two when he began having his teeth 
pulled, they tortured him so; and he kept on 
losing them, painfully, year after year. 

About this army again. He didn't want to 
manage it. He had had quite a liking for mili- 
tary work, as a youth, and had even gone on a 
small expedition to see active service, though 
his mother had interfered all she could, and tried 
hard to prevent him. But as this was all the 
experience he ever had had, and as he had never 
studied warfare, he didn't know anything about 
handling large bodies of troops. 

However, he had a clear mind and a good 
natural insight; and in spite of his ignorance, of 
which he was painfully conscious, he managed to 
win the war, and then thankfully returned to his 
farm. He went back with enthusiasm. He had 

[2X8] 



Story of a Farmer 

been away for eight years altogether, and for six 
of those years he did not once set foot on his 
fields. He had found time, however, in between 
whiles, to talk with the farmers in the northerly 
parts of his country, and collect new ideas. He 
now began to experiment with plaster of Paris 
and powdered stone as fertilizers. Fie tried 
clover, rye, peas, oats and carrots to strengthen 
his land. He tried mud. He planted potatoes 
with manure, and potatoes without, and noted ex- 
actly what the difference was in the yield. His 
diary speaks of the chinch bugs attacking his corn, 
and of the mean way the rain had of passing by 
on the other side of the river, falling generously 
there, while "not enough fell here to wet a hand- 
kerchief." He laboriously calculated the number 
of seed in a pound (this retired Commander!) 
and found that red clover had 71,000, timothy 
298,000 and barley 8,925. 

He also began at this time to use false teeth, 
which fitted him badly. And he was laid up 
occasionally with malaria, and fever and ague. 
And he was called upon to help frame a constitu- 
tion for his little nation. A busy period. He 
had an attack of rheumatism, too, which lasted 
over six months, and it was sometimes so bad he 
could hardly raise his hand to his head or turn 
over in bed. And when the national constitution 
had been adopted they elected him president. 
[219] 



The Crow's Nest 

That meant a lot of outside work for another 
eight years. 

Some of this work he hated. He hated 
speech-making for instance. At his inauguration 
he was so agitated and embarrassed that men 
saw he trembled, and when he read his speech his 
voice was almost too low to be heard. He was 
always very conscious of having a poor education, 
and being a bad speller and so forth. But the 
people didn't care about that, much: they trusted 
his judgment, and admired the man's goodness 
and spirit. 

A sculptor was sent to make a statue of him, 
late in his life. He couldn't get him to pose 
satisfactorily. No noble attitudes. In vain did 
the sculptor talk about state affairs and that war. 
Such things did not stir him. He remained 
either stiff or relaxed. But one day they were 
out on the farm together; and as this man 
watched his live-stock, he unconsciously took a 
fine, alive attitude. So the sculptor made a 
statue of him that way; and that statue is famous. 

In spite of his usual benignity, this man had a 
temper. He used to get very sore and warm at 
times, when unfairly criticized. At one of his 
cabinet meetings, for instance, says a contempo- 
rary, he became "much inflamed, got into one of 
those passions when he cannot command himself, 
ran on much on the personal abuse which had been 
[220] 



Story of a Farmer 

bestowed on him [and said] that by God he had 
rather be in his grave than in his present situation. 
That he had rather be on his farm than to be 
made emperor of the world, and yet that they 
were charging him with wanting to be a king. 
That that rascal Freneau sent him three of his 
papers every day, as if he thought he would be- 
come the distributor of his papers; that he could 
see nothing in this but an impudent design to in- 
sult him," etc., etc. Poor, stung human being; 
with all his serenity gone ! 

A great portrait painter said of him that his 
features were indicative of the strongest and most 
ungovernable passions; and had he been born in 
the forests, it was his opinion that he would have 
been the fiercest man among the savage tribes. 

This was the temperament that smoldered in 
him: the lurking flame that he had to live with 
daily. But by reflection and resolution he ob- 
tained a firm ascendancy over it. 

One night when he was sixty-seven years old 
he woke up at about two in the morning feeling 
very unwell. He had had a sore throat, and 
now he couldn't swallow; felt suffocated. A 
miserable feeling. His wife would have got up 
to call a servant; but he wouldn't allow her to do 
it lest she should catch cold. He lay there for 
four hours in the cold bedroom, his body in a chill, 
before receiving any attention or before even a 
[221] 



The Crow's Nest 

fire was lighted. Then they sent for the doctors. 
They bled the old hero three times, taking the 
last time a quart. He was physically a vigorous 
man, but this weakened him greatly. "I find I 
am going," he said. He was in great pain, and 
said, "Doctor, I die hard." A little later he 
added: "I feel I am going. I thank you for 
your attention, you had better not take any more 
trouble about me, but let me go off quietly." His 
breathing became much easier just at the end. 

Did he look back over his life as he lay there, 
waiting, and what did he think of it? That his 
farming had been interesting though difficult, and 
much interrupted? That his fellow-men had 
really asked a good many sacrifices of him, and 
not left him nearly as much time as he wished for 
his fields? Or did he think that in death he 
would at least have no more trouble with teeth? 
A set of dental instruments was found in one of 
his drawers after the funeral. In others were 
memoranda about affairs of state he had worked 
at, and various kinds of plows he had tried, and 
his farming accounts. 

His name was George Washington. 

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